This study focused on marine fisheries data collection, management and
utilization which diminished the ability of fisheries to be effectively managed and
leading to under-reporting.
The Delphi methodology was selected as the most appropriate means to
achieve the goals and objectives of this study because it provided a way to solicit and
gain consensus by experts on Namibian fisheries data collection and management.
The major findings were mostly the low interest of stakeholders in the data
collection and management processes. Second, the Fisheries Information Management
System (FIMS) where data is stored after validation did not allow any data analysis and
reconciliation process of figures, so that had to be done manually by using other
program not compatible with FIMS such as Structured Query Language (SQL),
Microsoft excel or access.
The study recommended that an in-house training program needed to be
arranged so that FIMS users would be able to appreciate the art of FIMS usage. Second,
fishing companies as data primary producers would need to advance from manual data
recording that would subsequently avail the data in timely manner or making the data
easier to disseminate and analyze.