WTO Releases New Report on Fisheries Deal Implementation Challenges for LDCs

In a new report, "Implementing the WTO Agreement on Fisheries Subsidies: Challenges and Opportunities for Developing and Least-Developed Country Members," the World Trade Organization lays out a summary of the agreement, what it means for developing countries, and efforts taken to provide development finance to the fisheries sector in developing member countries.

The agreement was reached during the WTO's 12 Ministerial Conference to address harmful fishery subsidies. It prohibits subsidies to parties fishing on the unregulated high seas, who are otherwise unregulated, or are catching fish in overfished areas (see 2206170010). It also includes transparency provisions aimed at helping WTO and its members get a better understanding of precisely how many subsidies are going where.

In its section on development finance, the WTO provided data on bilateral and multilateral development finance, relying on information from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development's Development Assistance Committee database. This data covers funding toward projects on fishing policies and administrative management, fishery development, fishery education, fishery research and fishery services.

WTO Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala said the report sets the context for conversations on implementation efforts for LDCs. "One telling statistic from the report, though, is that the assistance to sustainable marine fisheries over ten years is dwarfed by the annual USD 22 billion in harmful fisheries subsidies," she said. "Eliminating these subsidies would in principle unlock a huge amount of resources that could be redirected to promote and support sustainable fisheries management and practices by all members, including developing and LDC members."