PERSGA countries consider collaborative actions to address IUU fishing, fish spawning aggregations and sites, and fishery bycatch management issues as priorities, recognizing that several constraints and challenges need to overcome through joint efforts. These efforts are needed to create effective partnerships with a range of multiple sectors and stakeholders involved, accrue capacities, and ensure sustainability of implemented actions at local, national and regional levels. Spotting this, a subcomponent of SFISH project was aimed to support regional efforts addressing control of IUU fishing, protection of Fish Spawning Aggregations (SPAGs), and management of Fishery Bycatch in PERSGA region, which is currently focusing to achieve the following objectives:

• Assess the current state, management efforts and capacities for situational analysis identifying gaps hindering good and effective governance, using harmonized methods.
• Develop coherent Regional and National Action Plans for controlling IUU fishing, protection of fish spawning aggregations & sites, and reduction of fishery bycatch in the region.
• Provide tailored guidelines to facilitate training and regional coordination with particular focus on assisting implementation of the developed regional and national action plans.