This document contains the 1st draft of general guidelines for making management plan recommendations (MPRs) tailored for the EU fleet operating outside European waters; in accordance with the responsive fisheries management system (RFMS). The RFMS is a management approach founded on the concept of results-based management (RBM), where responsibility for fisheries management is transferred to resource users, provided that they meet with necessary requirements set forth by the competent authorities and document that they can achieve specified management objectives. These draft general guidelines will now be tested in the six FarFish case studies i.e. SW-Atlantic highseas mixed demersal fishery, SE-Atlantic high-seas mixed demersal fishery, Cabo Verde SFPA fishery, Senegalese SFPA fishery, Mauritanian SFPA fishery and the Seychelles SFPA fishery. Stakeholders representing the competent authorities and the EU fleet, as well as any other stakeholders with vested interests in the specific fisheries will follow the guidelines in order to develop MPRs for their fisheries. These MPRs will then be reviewed and audited; and the feedback used to improve the guidelines. This process will then be repeated within the project, as the 2nd draft general guidelines will be published and tested/validated within the FarFish case studies. The third and final version of the guidelines will then be published as a voluntary European standard (CEN Workshop Agreement) at the end of the project.

This project has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement no. 727891.