 A wise old adage goes, give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime. Namibia has committed itself to this prudent and self-reliant approach to sustaining life, recognizing the importance of uplifting and promoting its small-scale fishes to ensure food and nutrition security for thousands of Namibians who rely on the small-scale fishery sector to survive. In 2020, the government of Namibia through the Ministry of Fisheries and Marine Resources with technical assistance from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations resolved to develop the National Plan of Action for Small-Scale Fisheries, NPOASSF. The NPOASSF is premised on the voluntary guidelines for securing sustainable small-scale fisheries in the context of food security and poverty eradication. With the fifth National Development Plan and the Harambe Prosperity Plan II in 2020, Namibia through the Ministry of Fisheries and Marine Resources has adopted the voluntary guidelines for securing sustainable small-scale fisheries and develop a Namibian National Plan of Action for Small-Scale Fisheries for the period 2022 to 2026. The NPOASSF, that is now the Small-Scale Fisheries, is aimed at recognizing the important role that the small-scale fisheries sector played in socioeconomic growth and economic transformation. Essentially, we are supporting the arms of government and other stakeholders in Namibia that are responsible for small-scale fisheries in terms of setting up the necessary strategic frameworks to enable them to do the work that they do. And beyond the national institutions such as the Ministry of Fisheries, we are also working with other stakeholders that have an interest in the stake in ensuring that the sector or the sub-sector is successful. Women are prioritized first because there has been a realization that they have been left behind. So we want to ensure that the existing that will bring more women into the small-scale fisheries by training them, by providing them with the necessary skills that they need to be able to compete and participate in small-scale fisheries, and also to make sure that we also then those that are already in the system just again to capacitate them to do more, not only in terms of catching, not only in terms of providing food at the household level, but also to make meaningful investment in whatever they are doing so that they can have economic benefit from this small-scale fisheries. In the nature of inland fisheries in Namibia, it's already automatic a small-scale fisheries. Where we have differences is in the marine, where we have the large fishing industry and the small-scale fishermen and fishermen. That's where we have challenge or differences. In terms of the consultations for this process, the consultations were extremely thorough. The consultation started as early as 2008. Over 4,000 stakeholders were consulted for this particular document. And they also consulted approximately 120 countries in order for them to agree with regards to the framework for global sustainable small-scale fisheries. We are saying that small-scale fisheries may be small in scale, but they are extremely big in value. Women in the small-scale fisheries sectors have diverse capacities and capabilities which require support. The National Plan of Action for Small-Scale Fisheries recognizes that striving for gender equality in small-scale fisheries means empowering women to take their place across the entire value chain, including in the pre-harvest, harvesting and post-harvest sub-sectors. This includes transforming the sector by supporting improved technologies that enhance women's work. With the plan of action for small-scale fisheries, we realize that we can leverage on this to empower women, to pull in women and let them know of their rights and their responsibilities that they can also have and to be able to do what is predominantly a man's industry. We are coming to get our women who are sitting at home who are married to our fathers who were the Fishermen and we are saying you can also be the Fisherwoman in your own right and we are saying you can even look at alternative livelihoods like aquaculture. So you, as a woman, you need not fear that the sector is about men. It is about time that our women stand up for themselves and recognize that they have support and we are here giving that message as all Fishmen. We have seen how much jobs we can create through these small-scale fisheries compared to the formal fishing where we allocate quotas and rights to our people. Women will play a very active role in these small-scale fishers as we have heard about the women. They talked about these women companies, these empowerment groups. And if we look at Namibia in the culture, especially if you look in the areas where we grow vegetation like in the north, where women are working the fields mostly. So imagine if women is getting into these small-scale fishers and women are pulling the forces together and start working, we can create more jobs, more food for our people.