Ministry of Fisheries & Marine Resources
SOMALILAND LAUNCHES FIRST INTEGRATED FISHERIES DATA MANAGEMENT SYSTESM
HARGEISA, Somaliland | 15 September; a major step toward modernizing fisheries governance, the Ministry of Fisheries and Marine Resources, in collaboration with the Horn Environmental and Fisheries Organization (HEFO), has officially unveiled the Somaliland Fisheries Data Management System (FDMS).
Somaliland’s Fisheries sector is taking a major digital step forward this month, as the Ministry of Fisheries and Marine Resources officially launches a national Fisheries Data Management System in Hargeisa.
For years, managing Somaliland’s vast marine resources meant navigating a fragmented landscape. Fisheries metrics were captured in isolated silos some on paper forms, others in standalone spreadsheets, or trapped inside short-term project tools that never communicated with one another. This structural gap left the Ministry of Fisheries unable to track multi-year trends in catch volumes, monitor species composition, or accurately assess fishing effort across key landing sites.
Custom-built for Somaliland’s fisheries, the cloud-hosted platform bridges these exact operational gaps. Under the new platform, field enumerators at landing sites will record real-time catch data on mobile tablets. Central ingestion servers will automatically screen for errors before feeding verified data into an secure national repository and a live analytics dashboard for decision-makers.
What makes this system a game-changer is its unifying power. For the first time, government, UN agencies like FAO and UNDP, academic researchers, and civil society partners will receive fishereis information from a single, standardized data baseline.
“Whenever investors and development partners visit the Ministry, one of the first questions they ask is: What is Somaliland’s annual fish production, and do we have reliable data on fisheries catches? Until now, we have not been able to provide clear and comprehensive answers to these important questions. The Fisheries Data Management System provides the solution we have been looking for. We are committed to implementing the system and building a reliable fisheries data foundation, with the continued support and partnership of our development partners and investors,” said Ali Jama Farah, Minister of Fisheries and Marine Resources of Somaliland.
Officials and international partners say the system will strengthen scientific research, protect marine ecosystems, and build confidence for public and private investments in Somaliland.