Tumi Tómasson

programme director

January 2003

The UNU/FTP was established in 1998, following an agreement between the UNU, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Iceland and the Marine Research Institute in mid-1997. The initial agreement was for a five-year period. As from June this year, the contract has been extended for another six years.

The programme is run from August to February each year and consists of two distinct parts. In the six-week common introductory course the fellows gain an overview of the fisheries sector, which enables them to put the fisheries in their home countries into a regional and international perspective and to gain an appreciation for its development potential. The rest of the programme is devoted to specialist training, where the fellows are split into smaller groups according to their areas of expertise. This part consists of 5 weeks of formal course work and 14 weeks of project work and, where appropriate, on-the-job training. Care is taken to select projects that will be of direct relevance to the home situation of the fellow. In many cases the projects are based on data from their home countries/institutes. Sometimes the projects are a part of larger research and development projects carried out at one of the institutions hosting the UNU/FTP, and this work then finds its way into progress reports, technical reports, conference proceedings or even international journals. Most of the projects can be accessed on the homepage of the programme http://www.unuftp.is

Emphasis is put on the practical application of knowledge for assessment, development and research. The programme takes place in a working environment and is carried out as a cooperative venture of four institutions in Iceland which include the Icelandic Fisheries Laboratories, the University of Iceland and the University of Akureyri in northern Iceland, under the leadership of the Marine Research Institute. In the first five years of the programme, specialist courses in six different areas have been offered, one of them only once. So far, 43 fellows from 15 countries have completed the programme, including 12 women. In 2002 19 fellows entered the programme, including 9 women, with four new countries being represented. A breakdown according to countries and areas of specialisation is given in Table 1.

Table 1. Fellows of the UNU/FTP in 1998-2002, including 19 fellows who are expected to

complete the programme in February 2003

At the beginning of this year a new staff member joined the programme in a 50% position. The new programme officer worked previously at the Icelandic Fisheries Laboratories and was one of the main contacts of the UNU/FTP there, so she did not need a long induction period in her new post. The programme thus now has two and a half full time positions. In addition, the Marine Research Institute also supplies all general services.

A seven-member board governs the programme, with representatives from the cooperating institutions, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the fisheries sector in Iceland and the UNU. The board meets 4-5 times per year. In addition, the director of the programme is assisted by a studies committee composed of experts in the different fields offered as specialisations by the programme.

All the fellows who engaged in the programme in August 2001 completed their studies in February this year. An evaluation showed that the programme had met the expectations of the fellows. Even so, the programme is under constant revision and input is sought from the fellows, both in formal assessment of the programme, but also throughout the programme. Continuous feedback is necessary as the programme strives to meet the needs of individual fellows and their institutions. The fifth session of the UNU/FTP is now well underway. The current group of fellows, the largest so far, arrived in Reykjavík in mid-August and will be here for 6 months, leaving in mid-February. The fellows are finishing the formal coursework of the programme and are working on the proposals for their project work, and work attachments..

Three lines of specialisation are run this year, Quality Management of Fish Handling and Processing, Marine and Inland Waters, Resource Assessment and Monitoring, and Management of Fisheries Companies and Marketing. Six fellows are engaged in the last specialisation, which is now being run entirely at the University of Akureyri in northern Iceland.

The board has so far met four times this year, and the last meeting of the year is scheduled for late November. There was a change of directors at the Icelandic Fisheries Laboratories and the new director; Dr. Sjöfn Sigurgísladóttir replaced the previous director on the board of the UNU/FTP.

The main criteria for the selection of candidates is to contribute to the capacity building of institutions, organisations or the fisheries sector in general in LDCs. Participants must have at least a first university degree or equivalent and at least one year work experience. They are to return to their work after the training, and must have the full support of their organisations. At the same time care is taken to select candidates who are judged to be likely to derive the greatest benefits from the training in terms of professional development. Key institutions in cooperating countries are visited and a pool of potential candidates is interviewed. Selected candidates are invited to apply for a UNU fellowship and the applications, along with a report from the programme is sent to the UNU Training Implementation Committee (TIC) for evaluation and final approval.

To obtain the objective of institutional capacity building, it is necessary to build up a team of fellows in each cooperating country or institution. This means that there should be a medium or long-term commitment to cooperation between the UNU/FTP and its partners. At the same time, there is an increasing pressure from new countries to participate in the programme. This means that usually only one or two candidates from any given country are offered the opportunity to apply each year, and in many cases partners may have to wait a year in between. The growth of the programme however has enabled us to welcome new partners, and this year four new countries are represented on the programme, Russia, Estonia, Iran and Malaysia. The director visited Estonia and Iran in December 2001, and Malaysia, Mozambique and Vietnam in the first half of 2002. In addition he discussed the programme and interviewed candidates in Namibia and Malawi, when working on special assignments for the Icelandic International Development Agency and the Nordic Development Fund in these countries. The deputy director visited Murmansk in Russia, Cape Verde and The Gambia at the beginning of this year. In September he participated in the 50^th anniversary celebrations of Dalian Fisheries University in China and participated in an international symposium on Marine Fisheries 2002, held in Rongcheng and delivered papers at both occasions. So far our cooperation with China has been limited to Dalian Fisheries University, but other institutions have also shown a keen interest in the UNU/FTP.

It has always been on the agenda of the UNU/FTP to put special emphasis on southern Africa. It has however proven to be not so easy to recruit suitable qualified candidates from some of these countries, including Namibia, South Africa and Tanzania. A visit to interview potential candidates in these countries is planned for early 2003.

The UNU/FTP has entered discussions with the University of Iceland on the possibility of admitting outstanding fellows from the UNU/FTP to M.Sc. programmes at the university. These have not been finalised. The pressure to reach an agreement lessened when it became clear that funding through the regular budget could not be secured in 2003 for special M.Sc. fellowships for UNU/FTP fellows. The Icelandic International Development Agency has however expressed its interest in providing a fellowship in support of such a scheme. In line with a proposal from the 48^th session of the UNU Council in December 2001, the UNU/FTP is preparing to hold a short in-service training course next year. Funding has been secured to offer such a course in Vietnam in 2003. It is important that UNU/FTP fellows in Vietnam participate in the planning and execution of the programme.

There is a considerable interest in the programme and we get a lot of inquiries. Our brochure was revised and re-printed this year, and the website is under constant development. The final projects of the fellows of the third session have been put on the web, and the projects from the fourth session should be in before the end of this year. In addition, minutes of board meeting and visit reports are now available to board members on the web.

The UNU/FTP is quite visible in Iceland, not least because several delegations from LDC's visit Iceland to acquaint themselves with Icelandic fisheries and to seek some form of cooperation. The Icelandic Fisheries Exhibition is a large international event held every third year in Iceland. Our fellows attended the exhibition as part of the introductory course and participated in a one-day seminar on the Utilization of marine resources in light of technical advances in fisheries and processing, convened by the Ministry of Fisheries.

There were two visiting lecturers during the fourth session. Dr. Porfirio M. Alino, deputy director of the Marine Science Institute, University of the Philippines visited us in December 2001 and gave a series of lectures on issues in fisheries management in the Philippines. In January 2002 Dr. Kenneth Sherman gave a series of lectures on Large Marine Ecosystems, a concept which has been evolving over a period of time and gained increased prominence in fisheries management in recent years. Dr. Sherman who is a world leading authority on the subject heads the Northeast Fisheries Science Centre in Narragansett, Rhode Island, USA. There was a widespread interest in Dr. Sherman's visit and he was interviewed by the leading Icelandic daily newspaper.

In December Prof. Daniel Pauly from the ICLARM and the University of British Columbia was our visiting lecturer. Pauly is arguably the most prolific and cited living fisheries scientist, and is especially known for his work on tropical fisheries where data on stocks is usually more limited than in temperate areas. His visit aroused much interest in Iceland. He gave four lectures and one seminar under the general heading of ecosystem based approach to fisheries management. His lectures can be accessed at the website of the UNU/FTP.

The programme is financed from three sources. Most of the finance is provided by the annual budget approved by the end of each year by the Icelandic parliament. The budget is based on a proposal put forward by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, based on requests the programme puts forward in February. This year the programme received IKr 50.9. Million (USD 504 000) from the regular budget and an additional IKr 4.6 m from the Office of the Prime Minister and ICEIDA to increase the intake of fellows by 3, over and above what was originally planned. In addition the Fisheries Development Authority of Malaysia will contribute USD 20 000 to the programme in line with a letter of intent signed last year. A similar letter of intent has been signed with the fisheries authorities in Cape Verde. The UNU provides a contribution according to its budget allocation decided on every second year, which this year amounts to USD 90 000.

The programme is now in its fifth year of operation and the decision to extend it by another six years has already been taken. At the Council meeting in December 2001 a review and analysis of the UNU capacity building activities was presented. It is important that the activities of the UNU/FTP now also be reviewed in the context of this analysis so that the programme may continue to grow and prosper in the years ahead.