The fisheries sector in the Indian Ocean provides food to hundreds of millions of people and is an important contributor to food security, poverty alleviation, job creation and income generation. Out of the estimated 28.5 million people directly employed by the marine fishing sector (both industrial and artisanal) worldwide, artisanal fishing comprises 90% of all fishing jobs globally, representing approximately 45% of the world’s fisheries, and nearly a quarter of the world catch.

However, there has been a decrease in the fish stocks over the past years. It was estimated that 47% of 441 stocks (for which some available information on their status are available) were fully exploited, 18% were overexploited, 9% were depleted and 1% was recovering. Therefore, this necessitates urgent actions worldwide, including the Indian Ocean, for sustainable conservation, management, development and utilization of the India Ocean fisheries resources.

IORA is attributing high importance in strengthening cooperation in both the Fisheries Management Sector, as well as the Blue Economy, as reflected in the IORA Action Plan 2017-2021, which was adopted at the IORA Leaders’ Summit in March 2017 in Indonesia. This Action Plan is viewed as a roadmap that sets-up concrete actions to be undertaken on a short-term, medium-term and long-term basis, as well as to charter the future development of the IORA and for promoting cooperation in each priority sectors and focus areas. In view of sustaining and sustainably manage this growing industry, IORA Member States have been addressing several issues covering a wide range of themes such as: seafood products safety and quality; seafood handling, post-harvest processing and storage of fisheries and aquaculture products; banking and artisanal fisheries; sustainable management and development of fisheries resources; fish trade; among others.