What is COFI?
The FAO Committee on Fisheries (COFI), a
subsidiary body of the FAO Council, was formed in
1965 to review FAO's work in the fisheries sector
and look at particular international fishery
problems. The state of the world's fisheries had
arisen as a global concern in the international FAO
meeting of 1963, which noted the "exceptional
possibilities" offered by oceans and inland waters
in meeting protein needs throughout the world.
The coordination of all efforts in international
fisheries work is a constitutional responsibility
of FAO: the formation of COFI was an approach to
ensure FAO would be the leading intergovernmental
body working for the rational harvesting of food
from the oceans and inland waters.
Presently COFI constitutes the only global
inter-governmental forum where major international
fisheries and aquaculture problems and issues are
examined and recommendations addressed to
governments, regional fishery bodies, NGOs,
fishworkers, FAO and international community,
periodically on a world-wide basis. COFI has also
been used as a forum in which global agreements and
non-binding instruments were negotiated.
COFI began with just 30 member nations, but in
1975 membership opened to any FAO Member and
non-Member eligible to be an observer of the
Organization - by 2000 it included 169 states.
COFI may establish sub-committees on certain
specific issues, for example the Sub-Committee on
Fish Trade or the recent Sub-Committee on
Aquaculture. Such subsidiary bodies meet in the
intersessional period of the parent Committee.
The Committee has held 24 sessions. The First
Session in 1966, and thereafter annually till 1975.
Since 1977 the sessions have been held
biennially.
Functions of COFI
The two main functions of COFI are to review the
programmes of work of FAO in the field of fisheries
and aquaculture and their implementation, and to
conduct periodic general reviews of fishery and
aquaculture problems of an international character
and appraise such problems and their possible
solutions with a view to concerted action by
nations, by FAO, inter-governmental bodies and the
civil society. The Committee also reviews specific
matters relating to fisheries and aquaculture
referred to it by the Council or the
Director-General of FAO, or placed by the Committee
on its agenda at the request of Members, or the
United Nations General Assembly.
In its work, the Committee supplements rather
than supplants other organizations working in the
field of fisheries and aquaculture.
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