Workshop 2 "20 Year of Advisory Councils Stakeholder Expertise for Oceans Pact "

The aim of the workshop is to highlight the importance of stakeholder engagement through Advisory Councils for effective fisheries and aquaculture management, socio-economic, and conservation aspects. Through celebrating their successes since their establishment 20 years ago, the aim is to improve the understanding of their role in policy processes and to propose recommendations for stakeholder engagement in delivering the ambitions of the Oceans Pact via the ACs. In the spirit of participatory governance, we will ask the audience to contribute to the resulting inter-AC advice on the potential contributions of ACs to reaching the Ocean Pact’s aims, which is the key deliverable of this event.

The workshop will be divided in 3 parts. First, the new video clip on the Advisory Councils will be shown to provide participants with a visual introduction. The moderator will then introduce the panel (composed of AC Chairs and Vice chairs from both industry and OIG colleges) who will provide an overview of success stories spanning the 20 years of Advisory Councils’ work with stakeholders.

The moderator will then introduce certain points from the Oceans Pact to start a discussion in the panel on the role of ACs in supporting the implementation of the Pact. The discussion will include references to real-life examples of cooperation and consensus-building from 20 years of stakeholder engagement, adhering to the principles of good governance.

The core of the workshop will consist of a breakout session to involve the audience in discussing stakeholder engagement via the Advisory Councils and the Oceans Pact, in order to develop policy recommendations together with the groups’ leads. The audience will get a flavour of what it is like to be part of an AC and effectively contribute to policy making.

The moderator will draw conclusions, that will form the Inter-AC advice on the contributions of the Advisory Councils for the realisation of the aims and objectives of the Oceans Pact.