Construction started on new fisheries monitoring centre

MOZAMBIQUE: Construction of the new SADC Regional Fisheries Monitoring, Control and Surveillance Coordination Centre (MCSCC) officially got underway last week when the foundation stone was laid by the President of Mozambique, Filipe Jacinto Nyus.

The ceremony was attended by a delegation from the Southern African Development Community (SADC) Secretariat led by the Deputy Executive Secretary for Regional Integration, Angéle Makombo N`Tumba.

Speaking at the ceremony, N`Tumba highlighted the importance of MCSCC as a step for the SADC region to increase its ability to combat illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing and organised fisheries crimes. She further said that by working together, across sectors and countries, the region is better able to provide a united and integrated response to illegal activities and to protect SADC fisheries resources.

The MCSCC is currently coordinating regional fisheries MCS data and information sharing services and is mandated to coordinate development and management of a regional fishing vessel register and monitoring system; provision of regional fisheries surveillance, observer coordination and port State measures support services; provision of fisheries law enforcement and legal support services; and help to support improvements in the capacity of national MCS systems.

The Charter to establish the SADC MCSCC was approved in 2017 and came into force in April last year reaching two-third majority of Member States.

The State Parties to the Charter namely, Angola, Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Tanzania and Zambia have established the MCSCC as an international organisation and an autonomous and self-accounting institution of SADC. Seychelles became the Party to the Charter following accession in July 2023.