United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Forum Fisheries Agency

Capacity-Building/Technical Assistance Under the Global Environment Facility (GEF /United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)/Food and Agriculture Programme (FAO)/FFA project: Implementation of Global and Regional Oceanic Fisheries Conventions and related Instruments in the Pacific Small Island Developing States (SIDS), preparation of a Transboundary Diagnostic Analysis for the 14 Pacific Islands Small Island Developing States will be supported.A Transboundary Diagnostic Analysis (TDA) is a scientific and technical assessment, throughwhich the water-related environmental issues and problems of a region are identified andquantified, their causes analysed and their impacts, both environmental and economic, assessed. The analysis involves an identification of causes and impacts at national, regional, and global levels and the socio-economic, political and institutional context within which they occur. The identification of the causes would specify sources, locations, and sectors.The purpose of conducting a TDA is to scale the relative importance of sources and causes,both immediate and root, of transboundary ‘waters’ problems, and to identify potentialpreventive and remedial actions. The TDA provides the technical basis for development of a Strategic Action Programme (SAP) in the area of International Waters of the GEF.The TDA will include a detailed review of the state of the science – latest information and understanding of the stocks, biomass, trends, MSY, etc., current knowledge of the impacts of fishing on the broader ecosystem, and what we know about how climate change, including ocean acidification, can potentially impact the fishery. Ideally to degree possible the TDA should also bring forth the socioeconomic element (fishery contribution to GDP, exports, jobs, poverty reduction, etc.). If it is accepted that selected challenges in governance (at various levels) continues to be the main ‘root cause’ driving some forms of unsustainable use, the TDA should then review the regional and national governance arrangements and identify perceived gaps and weaknesses.In brief, preparation of the TDA will include:1. Undertake a comprehensive review of currently available information to analyse the possible TDA context, focusing on climate change, including ocean acidification, and its impacts on the oceanic tuna fisheries of the Pacific SIDS,2. Based on the work undertaken by SPC as a key component of the OFMP II, assess the impacts of CC on fisheries specifically on the geographic distribution of oceanic tuna the sustainability of tuna stocks under existing harvest strategies, among others, with impacts assessed at the regional, sub-regional and national levels,3. Prepare a report on the revised TDA framework which includes consideration of potentialrevisions to the oceanic fisheries aspects of the SAP. This report will be submitted to FFA forcomprehensive review. It is envisaged that a final report covering both the TDA and SAP willbe presented to the Forum Fisheries Committee in the Cook Islands in May 2018,4. Identify interventions at the national, sub-regional and regional levels to respond to theimpacts of climate change on oceanic tuna fisheries. Interventions at the global level tomitigate impacts could be included, and5. Present the set of interventions to the Pacific SIDS for discussion and agreement at thenational and sub-regional levels with the final presentation at the meeting in Honiara inOctober 2018, finalize the report into the format of a Strategic Action Program to beendorsed by the Ministers possibly at the same meeting.