The overall objective of this ACP Fish II  project is to strengthen the Fisheries Divisions capacity to formulate and implement sound fisheries and aquaculture policy in Dominica, Grenada, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines to provide national policy level direction for all stakeholders to ensure the sustainable management of the fisheries and aquaculture sectors.

The implementation involves a collaborative process that includes community consultations and a validation workshop to ensure ownership of the project and outputs by the administration and key stakeholders.  The Validation workshop was held on 31^st July 2012 in the south conference room at the national stadium, close to fisheries division in St George’s. . More than 55 People attended including the Hon Michael Dennis Letts Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, Aeron Francois, Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Agriculture and the Sally Anne Bagwhan Logie, Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Environment.

The essential underlying methodology for this policy development project has been participatory, with attention given to both the institutional level (government agencies and organisations representing key players in the sector) and the individual key players themselves who were consulted at a series of group meetings. To this end two types of consultation were held in Grenada from mid April to mid May 2012. These were:

• Nine key stakeholder focus group meetings were held involving the broad spectrum of potentially interested parties from fishermen’s associations and processors to aquatic tourism operators. A series of priority issues emerged after analysis and these formed the basis for subsequent consultation.  
• Four Community Consultations were held in the more important fisheries centres in Grenada (Grenville, Gouyave and St Georges) and Carriacou. A number of fishermen and other frontline stakeholders (traders, mechanics, aquaculturalists) were involved.