Rich Findings, Low Price: Monitoring Dekkal Geej’s Fisheries Observers

To combat illegal, underreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing in Senegal, the USAID/Dekkal Geej (Reviving the Seas) Project assisted the Fisheries Monitoring and Protection Service (DPSP) of the Ministry of Fisheries and Marine Economy (MPEM), to train 54 government fisheries officers as fisheries observers in August 2020. The DPSP was facing a shortage of qualified observers, due to attrition and under staffing. Eighteen months after the training was completed, Dekkal Geej wanted to find out what happened with this cohort of trainees. Were they able to use their training to affect change? The USAID/Dekkal Geej team used a Collaborating, Learning and Adapting (CLA) approach to conducting M&E for learning, and maximizing project resources using a cost-effective model by conducting phone interviews with 50% of the trainees. Surprisingly, only 55% of those interviewed reported having at least one observation mission since the training, with most of those reporting only one observation mission in the 18 months since the training. The USAID/Dekkal Geej team used these findings to improve not only future trainings but the technical support to the DPSP to increase the opportunities for observers to play this important role in the fishery ecosystem of Senegal.