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In order to comply with requirements of IOTC (Resolution 10/02), the Ministry of Fisheries and Marine
Resources (MFMR) is improving its collection of fisheries data. IOTC requires catch and effort data to be
collected, continuously, according to craft-gear combination and craft type, covering a wide range of
species and size categories, for all major large pelagic varieties. Somalia’s existing decentralized data
collection systems faced challenges fulfilling the requirements of IOTC: they had low sampling coverage,
poor species identification, high levels of species aggregation, a lack of gear-based data, and low
resulting accuracy of statistics. The uncertainty resulting from poor quality of the statistics has been
discussed in the IOTC WPDCS during the last few years.
Therefore, Somalia has taken actions to improve the catch data collection system for pelagic
fisheries. Project Kalluun – a partnership between MFMR, City University, Secure Fisheries, and FAO –
will pilot new fisheries data collection and community engagement. Its objective is to strengthen the data
collection, processing, and reporting system to enhance the quality of data by increasing coverage and
representativeness. Efforts have been made to improve sampling area selection, train data collectors on
sampling and species identification, and revise data forms. Special attention was paid to identify and
record species managed by the IOTC.
Project Kalluun will expand throughout Somalia. Fisheries Inspectors working for MFMR have
partnered with CU marine science students to collect foundational catch data (e.g., species, length,
weight, boat metrics) based on a standardized form. The study has originated in Liido and Hamarweyne
as a pilot area; later (it is hoped), the model will be introduced to all other waters in Somalia.
