The Regional Secretary for the Sea, Science and Technology welcomed the fact that the first tender for the implementation of Local Development and Community-Based measures (DLBC) in the Azores registered five applications covering the entire Region, "involving more than a hundred partners of the Azorean civil society; the vast majority is linked to the fisheries and maritime sectors."
 
The tender for the prequalification of coastal local development partnerships was promoted by the Regional Secretariat for the Sea, Science and Technology, through the Regional Coordinator of MAR 2020 Operational Programme. It will allow, for the first time in the Azores, the creation of Local Action Groups in the fisheries sector (GAL-PESCA). The project is funded by the European Maritime and Fisheries Fund (EMFF) in the amount of three million Euros.
 
The five applications for prequalification partnerships include structured information indicating the limits of the territory of operation, the nature of the partnership, the assessment of the situation in the territory where the measures will be implemented, the macro proposal for the strategy to be developed in the territory and the description of the involvement process with local communities.
 
Fausto Brito e Abreu stressed that "the applications will be analysed and selected in the next 60 days by an assessment committee" that will take into consideration three parameters: the contributions to the expected results in the implementation of coastal DLBC measures, the quality of the partnership and the alignment of the strategy with regional and sectoral strategies.
 
According to the provisions of MAR 2020 Operational Programme, the strategies developed under the coastal DLBC measures should be based on six types of intervention: innovation in maritime areas; school and professional qualification in maritime affairs; preservation, conservation and appreciation of heritage elements as well as of natural and landscape resources; strengthening of the competitiveness of fisheries; reinforcement of the competitiveness of tourism; improvement of short food supply chains and local markets for sea products.
 
"Through the implementation of coastal DLBC measures in the Region, the Regional Government aims to promote a local development strategy that takes into account the specific realities of each coastal communities and create new sources of income for fishers," stressed the Regional Secretary for the Sea.