8
while there has been, in general, virtually full participation in CDMSCS, regular participation in SCORRAD and IPFC itself has been confined to 10 and 11 members, respectively. The Commission may wish to recommend appropriate measures with a view to ensuring a better participation by all those member countries with a real interest in the fisheries in the region.
Administrative and Technical Support
40.
Secretariat and administrative services for the IPFC are provided by FAO. The seat of the Commission is the FAO Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific (RAPA). The offices of Secretary of the IPFC, ex officio Secretary of the Executive Committee and Secretary of CDMSCS are presently held by the Regional Fishery Officer of RAPA; the Regional Aquaculture Officer of RAPA is a Technical Secretary of the Working Party on Aquaculture; the Secretaries of the other committees and the other Technical Secretaries of the Working Parties are officers of the FAO Fisheries Department.
41. Technical support is provided by these officers as well as by other officers of the FAO Fisheries Department and by staff members of FAO-executed projects in the region, on a case by case basis, who thus constitute a pool of multi-disciplinary expertise on which the Commission could draw as needed.
42.
The adequacy, however, of only this type of technical support for fulfilment of all the Commission's functions and responsibilities needs to be considered, particularly in regard to
to the type of functions referred to earlier in paragraph 24.
43.
During the period 1981 to 1984, CDMSCS had a supplementary input of technical support through a very close linkage with an FAO-executed regional project the South China Sea Fisheries Development and Coordinating Programme - which operated in its area of competence and played the part of a locally based multi-disciplinary support unit to the Committee. The nature of the linkage enabled the Committee to influence the work programme of the regional project to meet the technical needs of the members of the Committee. Similar supplementary support with this type of linkage has
of linkage has never been available to the IPFC itself. Although a number of FAO-executed regional projects have operated in the Indo-Pacific region over the years and several are still operating, the linkage between them and the IPFC has been tenuous and quite different from that between the South China Sea Programme and CDMSCS. This is probably due to the fact that such linkage has not been adequately considered in the project planning process and made explicit in the institutional framework of the projects.
44. While the establishment of adequate linkage with regional projects could provide a substantial input to the work of the IPFC, with the added advantage that the projects are financed primarily from extra-budgetary resources, the disadvantage is
is that they have a limited time span. A continuing source of financing for fulfilling certain of the Commission's functions and responsibilities still continues to be indispensable and such financing will not generally be forthcoming from the Regular Programme budget of FAO.
Amendments to the Terms of Subsidiary Bodies
45. As stated in paragraph 30 above, consequent upon a review of the role and functions of SCORRAD at its Fifth Session in 1987, the IPFC recommended the adoption of one of two options submitted by the Committee to the Commission, which would enable concentration of the resources and time available to the former on marine fisheries. This option was as follows: "Reduction of