Rome - The 3rd Small-Scale Fisheries Summit (SSF Summit 2026) was held at the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations in Rome from 4 to 6 September 2026, offering participants from around the world the opportunity to discuss experiences and formulate priority actions to support a sector on which nearly half a billion people rely directly and indirectly for their livelihoods.
"Small-scale fisheries are critical to food security, livelihoods, poverty eradication, and sustainable development around the world," FAO Director-General QU Dongyu said at a ministerial high-level session held on the third and last day of the Summit. "Both marine and inland small-scale fisheries provide nutritious food for many families and society as a whole, often associated with identity, local traditions and way of life," he added.
Small-scale fisheries contribute to at least 40 percent of global fish catches and account for about 90 percent of the world's employment in capture fisheries value chains, the Director-General noted.
In his address engaging Ministers from Brazil, Indonesia, Cabo Verde and Madagascar, Qu emphasized that the Voluntary Guidelines for Securing Sustainable Small-Scale Fisheries in the Context of Food Security and Poverty Eradication (SSF Guidelines), adopted in 2014, remain a valuable instrument. "Their effective implementation addresses sustainable resource management with social development, to ensure that the sub-sector is inclusive, equitable, and environmentally, socially and economically sustainable," he said.
Participants in the Summit, including representatives of small-scale fisheries, Indigenous Peoples, government representatives, researchers and many others, engaged in numerous panels to discuss how to further implementation of the SSG Guidelines and to roll out National Plans of Action.
The Summit was organized by FAO along with the International Planning Committee for Food Sovereignty (IPC) Working Group on Fisheries, SwedBio, and International Collective in Support of Fishworkers (ICSF), with funding from Sweden, Norway, Germany, FAO, including the EAF Nansen Programme, the European Union's Fish4ACP programme and from U.K.-based charities Synchronicity Earth, Turning Tides and Blue Ventures, and other supporting partners.
Strengthening impact
The SSF Guidelines have proven impactful in helping strengthen small-scale fisheries networks and give greater attention to policy decisions to issues of importance in the sector. Countries around the Mediterranean and the Black Sea, where sustainability challenges have been particularly intense, have agreed to a Regional Plan of Action while seven countries have launched, in a participatory manner, National Plans of Actions for Small-Scale Fisheries (NPOA-SSF).
Yet there is still much to be done to realize the potential of small-scale fisheries and to safeguard the livelihoods of coastal communities, which are threatened by deteriorating environments, changing fishing patterns, disrupted fish breeding grounds, severe weather events, biodiversity loss, pollution and climate variations, as well as by competition with other economic sectors for resources.
The SSF Summit was organized immediately before the 37th Session of the Committee on Fisheries (COFI37), a FAO governing body, allowing it to serve as a stocktaking event to bring small-scale fisheries-related issues to broader attention and to strengthen global and regional concertation amongst small-scale fisheries organizations.
Small-scale fisheries have the potential to help address many of the world's pressing challenges. Small-scale fishers are often underrepresented, marginalized or voiceless, yet they are also stewards of ecosystems, central to local food production and incomes, and often their traditional knowledge is crucial for biodiversity conservation and sustainable resource use.
