Progressive improvement represents a key aspect of the FiTI implementation, as anchored in FiTI Principle 7 which stipulates: “Increasing transparency and participation must be feasible and introduced progressively in order to ensure the wide acceptance of this initiative.“
In other words, the FiTI does not expect all countries to have complete data for every transparency requirement from the beginning. Instead, public authorities must disclose the information they have, and where important gaps exist, they must demonstrate improvements over time.
It is the responsibility of a country’s National Multi-Stakeholder Group (MSG) to agree jointly on recommendations for addressing such gaps, and for the FiTI country’s government to act on these recommendations.
Total number of recommendations issued by National Multi-Stakeholder Groups to their governments to improve transparency and participation in marine fisheries management: |
0 |
| Recommendations according to FiTI countries | Recommendations according to implementation status |
| Recommendations by thematic area of the FiTI Standard |
| wdt_ID | Country | FiTI Report | Thematic area | Recommendation | Priority | Due date (Year) | Implementation status | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Seychelles | 2019 | #1: National Fisheries Laws, Regulations and Policy Documents | Determine and implement a publication strategy to ensure that all national and international fisheries laws, regulations and official policy documents are published online, up-to-date, easy to locate and searchable. | High | 2021 | Completed | All national and international fisheries laws, regulations and official policy documents are published online on the MOFBE website. |
| 2 | Seychelles | 2019 | #2: Fisheries Tenure Arrangements | Publish a list of all fisheries permit holders (including for the sea cucumber fishery), with information on the type of permit they hold, fees which have been paid and the start and end date of their permit(s). | High | 2021 | Completed | This was published as part of the 2021 reporting process. |
| 3 | Seychelles | 2019 | #2: Fisheries Tenure Arrangements | Publish online the rules and procedures for Seychelles-flagged vessels to obtain authorisations to fish in a third country or the High Seas, along with the reporting requirements and the provisions for terminating such authorisations. | High | 2021 | In progress | Published on the SFA website: application form, containing application conditions. Agreements will be introduced for Seychelles-flagged vessels which will include the oversight and reporting requirements. |
| 4 | Seychelles | 2019 | #3: Foreign Fishing Access Agreements | Publish any assessment regarding compliance of fishing vessels with the terms and conditions set forth in their respective access agreement, once available. | Medium | 2021 | Completed | No such assessments exist. |
| 5 | Seychelles | 2019 | #4: The State of the Fisheries Resources | Publish the reports and the results of all stock assessments undertaken in the last four years on their website. | High | 2021 | Completed | All stock assessment reports from 2017 onwards are now published on SFA's website. |
| 6 | Seychelles | 2019 | #5: Large-Scale Fisheries | Publish an up-to-date, online registry of all Seychelles-flagged and foreign-flagged large-scale vessels authorised to fish in Seychelles' marine jurisdictional waters, and of all Seychelles-flagged large-scale vessels authorised to fish in third countries' marine jurisdictional waters and on the High Seas. The vessel registry must include all 14 vessel attributes, as defined in the FiTI Standard. | High | 2021 | Completed | Large-scale vessel registry published on SFA website in a spreadsheet format updated for 2021. |
| 7 | Seychelles | 2019 | #5: Large-Scale Fisheries | Link the up-to-date, online large-scale vessel registry, once published, to relevant parameters and conditions of the underlying licences (e.g. licensing period, fees paid, species to be taken, areas to be fished, etc.). | High | 2021 | Completed | Published vessel registry has licence payment information and (for Seychelles-flagged vessels) information on areas of the High Seas and third country EEZs where fishing is allowed. |
| 8 | Seychelles | 2019 | #5: Large-Scale Fisheries | Publish all missing information for catches, landings, transshipments from the industrial longliner fishery for 2019. | High | 2021 | Completed | This information was published online on the SFA website as part of the Semester 1 2020 Fisheries Statistical Report. |
| 9 | Seychelles | 2019 | #5: Large-Scale Fisheries | Publish data on discards from the industrial longline fishery disaggregated as per the FiTI requirements, and from the purse seine fisheries by port of unloading, and by species or species groups. Furthermore, a note should be added in the introduction of the Fisheries Statistical Reports to provide information on how discard data is collected by the authorities. | High | 2021 | Completed | Discards data published as part of the 2020 Semester 2 Fisheries Statistical Report. This is not disaggregated by species as information is not provided in a consistent manner to the SFA. |
| 10 | Seychelles | 2019 | #6: Small-Scale Fisheries | Publish the total number of small-scale fisheries licences, and the total numbers of fishers engaged in the fishing sector, including gender information and whether fishers are engaged in full-time work, seasonal or part time fishing, occasional fishing or recreational fishing. | High | 2021 | Completed | SFA published on its website details as well as a summary table of the total number of small-scale fisheries licences issued in 2021. A summary table of the total number of fishers engaged in the fishing sector is also published but does not make a distinction between whether the fishers are part- or full-time. |
| 11 | Seychelles | 2019 | #7: Post-Harvest Sector and Fish Trade | Clearly state whether an informal fisheries sector exists in Seychelles. | Medium | 2021 | Completed | A statement on the existence of an informal fisheries sector in Seychelles from the government is included in the 2021 FiTI Report. However, it is not published on a website. |
| 12 | Seychelles | 2019 | #8: Fisheries Law Enforcement | Provide regular information on national strategies and activities applied to ensure compliance of fishing vessels and the post-harvest sector to MFBE, which will have the responsibility for publishing such information. | Medium | 2022 | Open | |
| 13 | Seychelles | 2019 | #9: Labour Standards | Publish online an official summary description of national laws on labour standards applicable for national and foreign workers employed in the fishing sector at sea and in the post-harvest fisheries sector in Seychelles. | High | 2021 | Open | The summary description is yet to be published. It appears there is a lack of capacity nationally to undertake this. |
| 14 | Seychelles | 2019 | #10: Fisheries Subsidies | Publish online the 2017 report that reviewed subsidies provided to the artisanal fisheries sector which the SFA commissioned. | Medium | 2021 | Completed | The report is published on the SFA website e-library. |
| 15 | Seychelles | 2019 | #2: Fisheries Tenure Arrangements | Publish a summary description of the different types of fisheries that exist in Seychelles, and their corresponding licence arrangements. The National MSG encourages the national authorities to utilise the summaries provided in this FiTI Report as a starting point for this aspect. | High | 2021 | Completed | A summary description of fisheries tenure arrangements has been published in the form of an FAQ on the SFA website. |
| 16 | Seychelles | 2019 | #2: Fisheries Tenure Arrangements | Publish in the Official Gazette the fees that need to be paid for all types of fisheries rights existing under the law. This also includes changes to current fee structures. | High | 2021 | Open | Deferred by national authorities for implementation in 2022, then further deferred until 2023. |
| 17 | Seychelles | 2019 | #3: Foreign Fishing Access Agreements | Publish online all foreign fishing access agreements and associated protocols. In case an agreement or expectation of confidentiality exists between the parties to an agreement, these agreements must be made public within 3 years from becoming a FiTI Candidate country (i.e. in Seychelles' case, latest until March 2023). | High | 2021 | Completed | All foreign fishing access agreements and associated protocols without confidentiality clauses have been published on the SFA website. SFA has also published a summary of the foreign fishing access agreements that do not contain confidentiality clauses. |
| 18 | Seychelles | 2019 | #3: Foreign Fishing Access Agreements | Publish online all studies or reports that have been undertaken by national authorities or foreign parties related to the evaluation or oversight of the foreign fishing access agreements signed by Seychelles. | High | 2021 | Completed | The three reports related to the evaluation or oversight of the EU/Seychelles fishing agreements are published on the SFA website. |
| 19 | Seychelles | 2019 | #4: The State of the Fisheries Resources | Publish on the SFA website any future fish stock assessment programmes the SFA is planning to undertake, and the research that is needed to support these assessment. | High | 2021 | Completed | The programme of future stock assessments up to 2024 is published on the SFA website. |
| 20 | Seychelles | 2019 | #5: Large-Scale Fisheries | Publish online any national evaluations or audits of the economic, social and food security contributions of the large-scale fishing sector, once available (e.g. the upcoming study on employment in fisheries). | High | 2021 | Completed | No such evaluations or audits exist. |
| 21 | Seychelles | 2019 | #9: Labour Standards | Obtain and publish information from the Ministry of Employment and Social Affairs on offences committed by employers in the fisheries sector, as well as mitigating actions taken. | High | 2021 | In progress | The Ministry of Employment and Social Affairs recorded 3 labour offences and 3 grievances committed by employers in the fisheries sector in 2021. The information has been published in the FiTI Report. |
| 22 | Seychelles | 2019 | #11: Official Development Assistance | Publish an up-to-date list of fisheries-related public sector projects, funded by bilateral, multilateral and private donors. This list should include information on the projects value, purpose and outputs, as well as corresponding project evaluations, if applicable. | High | 2021 | Completed | SFA compiled an inventory of fisheries-related public sector projects funded through ODA. It was published on the SFA website during the 2021 FiTI reporting process. |
| 23 | Seychelles | 2019 | #12: Beneficial Ownership | Follow up with the committee working on beneficial ownership declaration in the fisheries sector and determine a policy on beneficial ownership declarations for the sector. This should be based on a participatory and transparent process, involving all interested bona fide stakeholders from government, industrial and artisanal fishing, and civil society. | High | 2021 | Completed | Rejected as no such committee exists. |
| 24 | Seychelles | 2019 | #5: Large-Scale Fisheries | Publish on the SFA website, on an annual basis, all payments (e.g. for fishing licence, certificate of authorisation, excess catch, and environmental fee) on a per vessel basis made by large-scale fishing vessels, including the four information requirements of the FiTI Standard. | High | 2022 | In progress | Fishing licence payment information is available per vessel in the Vessel Registry. Information on excess catch and the environmental fee is published in the 2021 SFA Annual Report but is not disaggregated by vessel although the information is available in disaggregated form to the SFA. |
| 25 | Seychelles | 2019 | #3: Foreign Fishing Access Agreements | Publish information from previous (prior to 2019) and recent national stakeholder consultations undertaken with respect to the preparation, negotiation or monitoring of foreign fishing access agreements. | Medium | 2022 | Open | It is uncertain if such consultations took place. |
| 26 | Seychelles | 2019 | #4: The State of the Fisheries Resources | Prepare and publish a periodic report (e.g. biennially) on the state of the main commercial fish stocks in Seychelles. | High | 2022 | Open | This should have taken place in 2021 but has not started. |
| 27 | Seychelles | 2019 | #5: Large-Scale Fisheries | Set up an online database containing annual retained catches and transshipments and landings at local and foreign ports, disaggregated by flag state, species or species groups, gear type and catch location (national waters, third country waters, High Seas) in order for interested stakeholders to obtain detailed information on catch data. | Low | 2022 | Open | |
| 28 | Seychelles | 2019 | #5: Large-Scale Fisheries | Publish annual summaries of the socio-economic contribution of the large-scale fishing sector. | High | 2022 | In progress | Information on revenue generated by large-scale fisheries and contributions to the country's foreign exchange is published in SFA's Annual Report. |
| 29 | Seychelles | 2019 | #6: Small-Scale Fisheries | Publish annual summaries of the socio-economic contribution of the small-scale fishing sector. | High | 2022 | Open | |
| 30 | Seychelles | 2019 | #7: Post-Harvest Sector and Fish Trade | Ensure that annual information on the quantity of fish and fish products produced, as well as information on imports and exports, are published online in a timely manner. Such information should be disaggregated by species, as well as the country of destination/origin. | Medium | 2022 | In progress | Quantity of fish and fish products and fish imports and exports were published in the 2021 SFA Annual Report. Exports were presented by value and quantity and disaggregated by country of destination. Information is not disaggregated by species. |
| 31 | Seychelles | 2019 | #8: Fisheries Law Enforcement | Publish offences in the fisheries sector in a timely manner. This should include the name of the company or vessel owner, the nature of the offence and the penalty imposed. | Medium | 2022 | In progress | During the 2021 FiTI reporting process, SFA published the list of convictions and offences in the fisheries sector for 2020 and 2021 on its website. Information on the nature of the offence and the penalty imposed is included along with the vessel name. The name of the vessel owner is not included. |
| 32 | Seychelles | 2019 | #10: Fisheries Subsidies | Information on the types, values and recipients of government financial transfers or subsidies to the fisheries sector in Seychelles (both large-scale and small-scale fisheries) should be published, in particular regarding fuel subsidies, which is the main type of subsidies provided to the fisheries sector in Seychelles. | High | 2022 | In progress | Information on the value of ice and fuel subsidies only to the small-scale sector is published in the 2021 SFA Annual Report. Information on other subsidies to the small-scale fisheries sector is not published. MoFBE has confirmed that no subsidies are provided to the large-scale fisheries. |
| 33 | Seychelles | 2019 | #7: Post-Harvest Sector and Fish Trade | Publish annual employment information regarding Seychelles commercial fisheries sector, disaggregated by gender and sub-sectors (e.g. industrial and artisanal fishing). | Medium | 2023 | Open | |
| 34 | Seychelles | 2019 | #8: Fisheries Law Enforcement | Prepare and make available to MoFBE the financial and human resources deployed by the government to ensure compliance with national and international legislation in the fisheries sector (at least on an annual basis). MoFBE will be responsible for publishing such information. | Medium | 2023 | Open | |
| 35 | Seychelles | 2020 | #2: Fisheries Tenure Arrangements | Make it clear that the SFA can authorise its staff to issue fishing licences/permits (this recommendation replaces a previous recommendation requesting the SFA to gazette the names of the people authorised to issue fisheries licences. This is not feasible due to high staff turn-over in Seychelles national authorities). | High | 2022 | Open | Still outstanding |
| 36 | Seychelles | 2020 | #2: Fisheries Tenure Arrangements | Update the section on the SFA website concerning Certificate of Authorisations to include information on the fees that are charged for such authorisations, in addition to the reporting requirements and the provisions for terminating such authorisations. | High | 2022 | Open | Still outstanding |
| 37 | Seychelles | 2020 | #2: Fisheries Tenure Arrangements | Prepare and publish on the SFA website the mandatory administrative procedures required to evaluate applications of different types of fishing vessel licence and fishing activity licence, the nature of any oversight or public consultation processes involved and the appeals process in case of refusal. | High | 2022 | Open | Still outstanding |
| 38 | Seychelles | 2020 | #3: Foreign Fishing Access Agreements | Ensure that in the future all foreign fishing vessels licenced to fish in Seychelles waters do so only under an official signed agreement. | High | 2022 | In progress | The Seychelles' government negotiated new agreements with TTA and TFI and companies owning Seychelles-flagged vessels which will be signed and published in 2022 and become effective in 2023. The government indicated that following this, all fishing vessels, foreign- or Seychelles-flagged, licenced to fish in Seychelles' waters, will do so under an agreement. |
| 39 | Seychelles | 2020 | #3: Foreign Fishing Access Agreements | Put in place a strategy to review the implementation of all foreign fishing access agreements, including an assessment of compliance with the terms and conditions of the agreements, and make publicly available a report containing the findings. | Medium | 2023 | In progress | An exercise to assess the implementation of the fishing agreements with Mauritius and the EU started during the 2021 FiTI reporting process. |
| 40 | Seychelles | 2020 | #4: The State of the Fisheries Resources | Put in place a campaign to raise awareness of the stock status of fisheries that are under threat of overfishing. | High | 2022 | In progress | The outcome of the stock assessments of lobster and sea cucumber has been shared with stakeholders in these two fisheries. |
| 41 | Seychelles | 2020 | #4: The State of the Fisheries Resources | Establish and publish online a research plan to collect required data on vulnerable species for stock assessment purposes. | High | 2023 | Open | There is no update yet. |
| 42 | Seychelles | 2020 | #4: The State of the Fisheries Resources | Provide biannual updates on the stock status of the main species targeted by the small-scale fisheries. | High | 2024 | Open | |
| 43 | Seychelles | 2020 | #5: Large-Scale Fisheries | Keep the large scale-vessel registry continually updated, at least on a quarterly basis, and ensure that all information required is available for each vessel licenced to fish in Seychelles waters. This should be done through the update of the licence application form and for SFA to ensure that all information is provided before issuing licences. | Medium | 2022 | In progress | The published large-scale vessel registry is not updated quarterly but rather at the end of a calendar year. Information on the tuna quota and vessel beneficial owners is still missing. |
| 44 | Seychelles | 2020 | #5: Large-Scale Fisheries | Cross-check and verify that the legal owner of the vessels recorded in the vessel registry are accurate and ensure that information of the owners address and nationality is provided. | High | 2022 | In progress | SFA is reviewing the vessel licence application form to include an explicit section to capture beneficial ownership as opposed to just business ownership. |
| 45 | Seychelles | 2020 | #5: Large-Scale Fisheries | Officially pronounce the licence fee for large-scale joint-venture fishing vessels. | Medium | 2023 | Open | |
| 46 | Seychelles | 2020 | #5: Large-Scale Fisheries | Devise a strategy to ensure that the Fisheries Statistical Reports are published in a timely manner so that data on catch, effort, landing and transshipment are more accessible. | Medium | 2023 | In progress | The 2021 Fisheries Statistical Report and SFA Annual Report were both published during the 2021 FiTI reporting process which improved availability of validated information. However, there were issues with the technology and reporting of data for the artisanal fishery, which meant incomplete data for that fishery. |
| 47 | Seychelles | 2020 | #5: Large-Scale Fisheries | Put in place an online system for making available data on catch, effort, landing and transshipment so that the data can be more easily interpreted and can fulfil all FiTI requirements that are possible. | Medium | 2023 | In progress | This has started. More data is now published in the Fisheries Statistical Report. |
| 48 | Seychelles | 2020 | #6: Small-Scale Fisheries | Undertake a study to determine the economic, social and food security contribution of the small-scale fishing sector. | Medium | 2023 | In progress | Two studies were published in 2021 relating to the sea cucumber and the semi-industrial fisheries. |
| 49 | Seychelles | 2020 | #6: Small-Scale Fisheries | Publish the data on catches in the sea cucumber and lobster fishery as part of the SFA Fisheries Statistical Report. | High | 2022 | Completed | 2021 catch data on the sea cucumber and lobster fisheries is published in the 2021 Fisheries Statistical Report. |
| 50 | Seychelles | 2020 | #7: Post-Harvest Sector and Fish Trade | Work between the SFA and the Fish Inspection and Quality Control Unit (FIQCU) of the Seychelles Bureau of Standards (SBS) should be carried out to ensure that more disaggregated data is available on the export of fish. This should also include disaggregation of export by species and those being exported as by-catch. | High | 2023 | Open |
- 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 the National MSG.
- A government’s progress regarding implementation of the National MSG’s recommendations is documented in the country's subsequent FiTI Reports.
- The FiTI Standard does not set out a specific timeframe for improvements to occur, as this is highly dependent on each country’s context and situation. It is the National MSG that states its expectations as to when a recommendation should be addressed by the government.
- The Progressive Improvement Tracker is only updated after the publication of a new FiTI Report. So far, the following FiTI Reports have been included:
- Seychelles: 2019, 2020, 2021
- Mauritania: 2018, 2019-20, 2021
- The FiTI International Secretariat does not independently verify whether recommendations have or have not been fully completed. The implementation status of recommendations is principally documented by the Report Compiler as part of their responsibilities when preparing a FiTI Report. However, if the FiTI International Secretariat finds compelling evidence that contradicts the information the Report Compiler receives from the government, this is noted in the ‘Description’ field.
Version: 1.0 (last updated: 14 June 2023)