The Council of FAO established, in 1967, the Fishery Committee for the Eastern Central Atlantic (CECAF) for the region from the Strait of Gibraltar to the mouth of the Congo River. Its membership includes African nations along the coast and a number of non-African nations conducting fishing in this general region. The present members are: Benin, Cameroon, Congo, Cuba, France, Gabon, Gambia, Ghana, Greece, Guinea (Republic of), Italy, Ivory Coast, Japan, Korea (Republic of), Liberia, Mauritania, Morocco, Nigeria, Norway, Poland, Romania, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Spain, Togo, United Kingdom, United States of America and Zaire.
At the Third Session of CECAF held at Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Canary Islands, in December 1972, representatives from the developed countries, members of CECAF, indicated that their governments would provide assistance to African countries members of CECAF for programmes to be coordinated under a regional scheme and an outcome of this was that a fishery development programme combining UNDP assistance and non-UNDP overseas collaboration was conceived and approved by UNDP on 8 October 1974.
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) is the executing agency for the CECAF Project which covers the period from February 1973 to July 1978. This paper, as well as others in a series referred to as ECAF Pub. Ser., provides information gathered during the duration of the Project.
