FiTI launches Progressive Improvement Tracker to monitor transparency progress

The Fisheries Transparency Initiative (FiTI) launched today a new tool to monitor improvement recommendations made by National Multi-Stakeholder Groups (MSGs) to progressively enhance transparency in fisheries management in their countries.

The FiTI is based on the principle that implementing countries do not need to have complete data for every transparency requirement of the FiTI Standard from the beginning. Instead, public authorities must disclose the information they have, and where important gaps exist, they must demonstrate improvements over time. As such, engaging with the FiTI is not intended to be a burdensome and costly research activity. It has been designed to ensure that any country can implement it, including those where resources for collating information are limited. In fact, the FiTI may be particularly beneficial in such contexts, as it should support national authorities in their efforts to organise and present information.

It is the responsibility of a country’s National MSG to agree jointly on recommendations for addressing identified transparency gaps, and for the FiTI country’s government to act on these recommendations. While a country’s government is not obliged to implement recommendations from its National MSG, it must, however, respond to each recommendation, even if it rejects the proposal from its National MSG.

In accordance with the FiTI Standard, government’s progress regarding implementation of the National MSG’s recommendations must be documented in subsequent FiTI Reports. The FiTI therefore does not only seek to increase transparency around the information demanded by the FiTI Standard’s 12 thematic areas of fisheries management, but also aims to make transparent the rate of improvement over time.

The FiTI’s new Progressive Improvement Tracker (version 1.0) consolidates the recommendations made by different National MSGs and facilitates the monitoring of progressive improvements across:

• countries,
• implementation status, and
• thematic areas.

In its first release version, it already includes almost 90 recommendations made by the National MSGs of Seychelles and Mauritania as part of their first three reporting processes.

The tool will be continuously enhanced and also updated once new FiTI Reports are released by FiTI implementing countries.