Performance Review 2017-2019

Background

NAMMCO agreed in 2017 to undertake a Performance Review of the organisation based on the “Kobe Criteria for Reviewing the Performance of RFMOs” and amended to reflect NAMMCO’s mandate and membership.

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the International Whaling Commission (IWC) and the Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organization (NAFO) were each asked to nominate a member of the Performance Review Panel, and the members of the Panel were: Dan Goodman, FAO nominee, Caterina Fortuna, IWC nominee and chair of the Panel and Russell Smith, NAFO nominee.

The report, presented to the 27th Council meeting in 2019, concluded that the Commission meets its objective stated in the NAMMCO Agreement by contributing “through regional consultation and cooperation to the conservation, rational management and study of marine mammals in the North Atlantic“. It underlined that outputs from NAMMCO Committees had been significant and substantial, and that NAMMCO had attained a level of credibility among other organisations involved with Arctic issues and marine mammal conservation.  Its work was valued, relied upon and sought and NAMMCO was a preeminent and credible forum for the discussion on conservation and management of marine mammals in the Arctic and Northern Atlantic regions.

The Panel found that all NAMMCO members share NAMMCO’s commitment to ensure the sustainable management of marine mammals in the North Atlantic. They had, for the most part, implemented the recommendations and the conservation and management measures proposed by the Commission in a timely fashion, although there have been some instances in which they had not.

The Panel concluded that while NAMMCO had performed well, there was room for improvement, and it provided a total of 95 specific recommendations and suggestions on how the Commission could improve various aspects of its performance and had identified some serious concerns.

Follow up

NAMMCO established an ad hoc Working Group (PRWG) led by the Chair of Council to review the recommendations introduced in the Performance Review Report.

Discussing NAMMCO policies and principles in general and noting the over-arching recommendations from the Panel, the PRWG identified five issues that would further strengthening and improving the work of the organisation, both in the shorter and longer terms. These were:

1) Data quality and reliability to ensure high quality science, which is at the core of NAMMCO management,

2) Follow up on the scientific, conservation and management advice provided by the Committees,

3) Transparency in work processes,

4) Precautionary approach in management,

5) Communication efforts.

All NAMMCO Committees and working groups were asked to review the recommendations specific to their areas of work in light of these five issues.

The committees overall respnse was to underline the importance of and need for: a) the website to serve as a hub of reliable information (for both internaluse and for the public), b) reliable data reporting from Member Countries, c) a standardised manner of reporting all data requests, and) the safe storage of data on a suitable platform to ensure standardisation, continuity, and accessibility.

Concluding its work the PRWG agreed that the Performance Review had been a positive process for assessing the progress and priorities of the organisation. It had confirmed that NAMMCO outputs were substantial and substantive and made it a credible forum for discussion of the conservation and management of marine mammals in the Arctic and North Atlantic regions.

The PRWG recommended Council to adopt a set of follow up actions for each of the five priority issues identified for NAMMCO, which could benefit from greater attention and focus. 

You can find the report of the Performance Review Panel here.

Performance Review documents .zip file and report

Individual documents can be downloaded below.