By Development Communication Section
SEAFDEC information staff and officials from Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines reviewed the information-related activities of SEAFDEC especially on raising SEAFDEC’s image and visibility at international, regional and national levels. The Fifteenth SEAFDEC Information Staff Program (ISP) meeting was convened on 28-30 October 2014 at Makati City, Philippines.
Most of the information performance metrics, such as number of publications, number of visitors to the stations, to the websites, to exhibition booths and media exposure have markedly increased over the past year. But despite these positive indicators, Dr. Chumnarn Pongsri, SEAFDEC Secretary General, observed that “considering the high number of reports on SEAFDEC events, research staff of SEAFDEC should come up with research findings that could be transformed into information packages for dissemination to end users.”
On the strategy of improving information sharing within SEAFDEC and with other institutions, the meeting suggested that SEAFDEC could consider promoting the Knowledge Management scheme implemented by the Southeast Asian Regional Center for Graduate Study and Research in Agriculture (SEARCA). A collaboration with SEARCA could be raised by the Secretariat during the next SEAFDEC Program Committee Meeting. This collaboration will focus on public education in conservation and sustainable use of fishery resources in the ASEAN region. They will schedule a consultation for this event.
The SEAFDEC/AQD information staff and library personnel briefed the other Departments of SEAFDEC on how to set up and maintain a database system. Information officers of the SEAFDEC Departments were keenly interested on SEAFDEC/AQD’s database the Executive Information Support Group (EISG) and on the highly successful SEAFDEC/AQD Institutional Repository (SAIR).
The next ISP meeting will be held in Malaysia hosted by the Marine Fishery Resources Development and Management Department of SEAFDEC.