Fishing in Africa: A vital sector in need of deep reforms

In May 2024, the European Union (EU) issued a "yellow card" to Senegal for an alleged lack of commitment to combating the devastating effects of illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing. Six months later, the EU Delegation in Dakar announced the withdrawal of its vessels from Senegalese waters. The cause was the "failures" of local authorities against this fraudulent fishing. The reaction was almost immediate: the new government announced the government's "new strategic orientations for the sustainable management of our resources," orientations in which "national interests" would be prioritized. This marked the (temporary?) end of a partnership sealed in 2014 and renewed in 2019.

The falling-out between the EU and Senegal in such a vital area is a wake-up call. It could be seen as a snapshot of potential dormant difficulties in Brussels' fisheries agreements with other sub-Saharan African countries. While Senegal has complained of a certain inequity in the fisheries agreement with the EU, which has been in effect for ten years, other countries could do the same one day or another. The stakes are enormous. Several million people derive their daily livelihood, directly and indirectly, from fishing activities in coastal countries and those in the hinterland, such as West Africa. Industrial units—large, medium, and small—some of which are the result of billions of CFA francs of investment, alongside tiny, rather informal structures, provide several thousand jobs, most of which support families and entire communities in contexts often bordering on poverty. The sector cannot forever endure a succession of serious crises in the fishing industry without countries feeling the severe impact, particularly on the social front.

It is therefore important to find, in the design and implementation of bilateral partnerships, a happy medium that preserves the fundamental interests of these states and their populations while making possible the objectives that the EU has legitimately set for its vessels in return for its technical and financial investments in its partners. This win-win deal thus appears to be an opportunity, especially for the European Union's African partner countries, to make fishing a strategic area (finally!) in their economic and social development policies. From this perspective, it is crucial that the EU and its state allies work towards agreeing on fair and equitable agreements, one of the essential criteria of which would be to promote the renewal of the resource through strict and dissuasive legal provisions. Such a perspective, of course, is incompatible with the unbridled production-oriented vision that is the favorite sport of vessels of diverse nationalities. These vessels do not necessarily respect sovereign and international provisions relating to fishing methods, the protection of certain species, the delimitation of fishing zones, etc. This situation, which highlights the inability of certain states to combat complacency, is one of the major arguments used to pressure public authorities to more effectively combat the phenomenon of resource scarcity. A losing battle? Perhaps not, even if the corruption of public officials in collusion with influential, powerful, and well-established economic groups fuels crime in the ecosystem, particularly during the allocation of fishing licenses.

Facing reality
Everything could depend, in fact, on the urgent corrective measures that states are determined to implement to address the sector's dysfunctions. Because, whichever way you look at it, the situation is critical. In many countries, chaos reigns under the guise of public policies that are powerless to impose law and order. Large vessels, which are in reality the operational arms of powerful industrial groups, hide behind Senegalese-registered companies to pay as few taxes and royalties as possible. Others change their foreign-sounding names to ones that sound more "local." Some vessels, however, choose to scour the richest fishing grounds of the exclusive economic zones, knowing that states lack the means to monitor these often vast sovereign maritime territories. The latest 2023 report from the Senegalese Court of Auditors documented all these realities that are weakening the fishing sector. In the same vein, a Central African country like Cameroon has also embarked on a process of listing companies accredited to operate coastal industrial fishing, particularly for the year 2025. The objective here is twofold: on the one hand, to combat IUU fishing, and on the other, to create the conditions for the emergence of a more efficient local fishing industry capable of contributing to the national economy.

In this regard, it is reasonable to believe that the very fundamentals of industrial fishing deserve to be reviewed. Do the gigantic size of foreign trawlers, their exceptional catch capacities, and the means of processing the resources available on board not ultimately condemn artisanal fishing to death by promoting the gradual disappearance of certain fish species? For many countries, including Senegal, which has some 600,000 fishermen, or 17% of its active population, more than 20,000 pirogues, and 160 industrial vessels (source: Reporterre magazine), such a situation could turn into political risks for the state if the situation is not brought under control.

Fisheries crisis migration to…Europe
In several sub-Saharan African countries, while they were somehow ensuring a share of food security in their communities, thousands of young people, ill-prepared for retraining in other sectors of activity, prefer to trade their fishing gear for those of migrants determined to find a "better future" in other climes such as… Europe. At the risk of being swallowed up in the depths of the Mediterranean or the Atlantic Ocean. Irregular migration (which, incidentally, gives Westerners hives) is thus documented as one of the dramatic consequences of the continued deterioration of artisanal fishing conditions, the dwindling of resources, the continued impoverishment of a significant segment of the population with already precarious social status, etc.

The European Union is already devoting several hundred million euro to trying to stem the flow of migrants to the Spanish, Italian, and French coasts. But here's the thing: are the specific agreements signed with Mauritania, Tunisia, Libya, and other states effective in achieving the objectives of such large financial, technical, and logistical investments when the outward flows, often cyclical, do not appear to be decreasing in intensity or magnitude?

It may be time for Europe and its sub-Saharan African partners to thoroughly revisit the history and results of cooperation, against irregular immigration that seems doomed to always start from scratch. In this regard, the opportunities that controlled industrial fishing and efficiently structured artisanal fishing can offer, both to escape the phenomenon of corruption, seem to be a powerful antidote to wasted investment in projects and programs that seem clearly behind the aspirations of potential migrants. It is the Euro-African political and diplomatic agenda for 2025 and the years to come that should be impacted by the fisheries issue and its immediate connections, if the 7th European Union-African Union Summit planned for this year is oriented towards a profound and strategic update of the Europe-Africa relationship in the face of the brutal dynamics that Donald Trump is trying to impose.

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