Report of the Regional Workshop on Methods for Aquaculture Policy Analysis, Development and Implementation in Selected Southeast Asian Countries. Bangkok, 9–11 December 2009.

The Regional Workshop on Methods for Aquaculture Policy Analysis, Development and Implementation in Selected Southeast Asian Countries was convened by FAO and the Network of Aquaculture Centres in Asia and the Pacific (NACA), in response to a request from the Sub-Committee on Aquaculture (New Delhi, 2006). The workshop was also a follow-up to the recommendations of the Expert Consultation on Improving Planning and Policy Development in Aquaculture held in Rome in 2008. It enabled the building of capacity related to aquaculture planning and policy development by encouraging participants to critically reflect on the planning processes undertaken in their countries and on the relevance of the contents of their aquaculture policies. Participation, achievability, accountability, continuity, monitoring and evaluation, and balancing goals were identified as the six key characteristics of sound aquaculture policies. The workshop recommended the holding of similar capacity building workshops at national levels, the follow-up by the Southeast Asian Fisheries Development Centre (SEAFDEC) of the issue of regional integration in the aquaculture sector and the dissemination of the FAO technical guidelines for aquaculture policy formulation and implementation, if possible in their Southeast Asian specific version.