MONROVIA – Illegal fishing costs West Africa more than its governments can measure, and Liberia has spent three days in Monrovia trying to close the gap between what happens in its waters and what its institutions see. The National Fisheries and Aquaculture Authority has concluded a technical workshop drawing together seven ministries and agencies alongside the regional fisheries body for the West Central Gulf of Guinea, with the aim of sharpening monitoring, control and surveillance and hardening port controls against unlawful operators. As THE ANALST reports, the Authority also disclosed plans to introduce artificial intelligence into its Fisheries Monitoring Center, a step its Director General says would give the state sight of vessels that presently move unseen.
MONROVIA – The National Fisheries and Aquaculture Authority has concluded a three-day technical workshop in Monrovia aimed at strengthening Liberia’s inter-agency coordination and operational readiness. The exercise targeted improvements in Monitoring, Control and Surveillance, the implementation of effective Port State Measures, and cooperation with regional mechanisms to combat Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated fishing and related fisheries offenses.
The workshop, held between July 20 and 22, 2026, at the Authority’s headquarters on Bushrod Island, brought together facilitators and members from the Fisheries Committee for the West Central Gulf of Guinea and key ministries and agencies of the Inter-Agency National Working Group. These included the Ministries of Justice and National Defense, the Liberia Immigration Service, the National Port Authority, the Liberia Revenue Authority and the Liberia Maritime Authority.
A Six-Nation Regional Frame
The Fisheries Committee for the West Central Gulf of Guinea is a regional fisheries organization with a membership of six West African countries: Benin, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Liberia, Nigeria and Togo. It was established in 2007 to facilitate cooperation in fisheries management among member countries.
Its involvement places Liberia’s national effort within a wider architecture, since vessels that leave one jurisdiction under suspicion routinely enter another. The regional body has argued for years that isolated national enforcement is the condition under which illegal operators thrive.
Transparency As A Starting Point
Addressing participants at the opening session, Director General J. Cyrus Saygbe, Sr. said the meeting was a timely and strategic move toward safeguarding Liberia’s fisheries resources and strengthening the collective response to unlawful fishing. He placed the country’s recent transparency commitments at the center of that argument.
“Liberia has demonstrated its readiness to take the first step toward greater transparency and accountability in fisheries governance by subscribing to major international transparency initiatives, including the Fisheries Transparency Initiative, the ratification of the BBNJ Agreement, and the Global Charter for Fisheries Transparency. These initiatives are being undertaken because we genuinely believe they are the right thing to do for our fisheries sector, for our people, and for future generations,” he said.
Artificial Intelligence At Sea
The Director General disclosed that Liberia is taking significant steps to upgrade its Fisheries Monitoring Center through the introduction of artificial intelligence. The upgrade, if delivered, would change what the state is capable of seeing in its own waters.
He set out in some detail what the new capability is expected to deliver. “These advanced systems will help Liberia achieve real-time visibility across maritime activities, including both Automatic Identification System and non-AIS vessels; detect high-risk and previously invisible vessel activity using satellite intelligence and artificial intelligence; prioritize enforcement actions through risk-based decision support; operationalize intelligence through integrated enforcement workflows and case management; and strengthen regulatory control, improve revenue protection, and recover millions of dollars in annual losses,” he added.
The Regional Case
For his part, the Secretary General of the regional Committee, Dr. Antoine Gaston Djihinto, said the meeting was important in providing an overview of fishing activities within the waters of member states and in presenting progress on the Regional Record of Authorized Fishing Vessels. That record serves as a strategic tool for information sharing among national administrations and for enhancing transparency in regional fishing operations.
“Our deliberations will address the respective roles and responsibilities of the various institutions involved in inspections at sea and in port. Particular attention will be given to identifying the information requirements needed to improve the quality of inspections, facilitate intelligence sharing, and enhance the effectiveness of joint operations,” he said.
He listed stronger institutional capacities, enhanced cooperation mechanisms, modern information-sharing tools and increased trust among the administrations of member states as achievements of activities championed by the regional bloc. “It is now incumbent upon us to build on these achievements and continue developing a more integrated, responsive, and effective regional fisheries governance system that contributes to the conservation of fisheries resources and the food security of our populations,” he added.
What The Workshop Produced
At the close of the meeting an updated capacity assessment reflecting current institutional, operational and technical needs was carried out, and relevant agencies were briefed on recent developments relating to the regional Monitoring, Control and Surveillance Center. Participants examined the Center’s relevance to Liberia’s national system and established stronger coordination arrangements between it and the national Fisheries Monitoring Center.
Further progress was made on the Standard Operational Procedure for Port State Measures on vessel inspection, including agreement on areas requiring refinement and follow-up. A shared action plan for follow-up support, technical assistance and next steps was developed at the end of the workshop.
Why It Matters
West Africa is endowed with abundant marine resources, yet illegal fishing and associated crimes continue to pose a serious threat to the sustainable governance of those resources. The impacts are particularly acute in this region, long identified as a hot spot for illegal operators, with consequences for food security, livelihoods, public revenues and marine ecosystem health.
Since 2015 the project Fisheries Intelligence and MCS Support in West Africa, supported by Norway and implemented by TMT and Stop Illegal Fishing, has assisted member states of the regional Committee in tackling unlawful fishing. Since 2021 additional targeted support has strengthened technical and operational implementation of Port State Measures through the program Supporting PSMA Implementation in Africa: Intelligence-led Fisheries Port Controls, implemented by TMT with Global Fishing Watch.
In Liberia, recent inter-agency engagement on implementation has included the validation of a Memorandum of Understanding to strengthen cooperation among relevant authorities, alongside technical visits focused on developing procedures for Advanced Request for Entry to Port analysis and vessel inspection of foreign fishing vessels calling at the Freeport of Monrovia. The regional Center itself supports vessel monitoring, information sharing, joint operations and the development of the Regional Record of Authorized Fishing Vessels as a tool to improve oversight, transparency and accountability.