The Community-Based Fisheries Management (CBFM) Phase 2 is a research and development project with an estimated value of AUD 2 million (USD 1.5 million) per annum over four years (2017-2021). University of Wollongong also co-contributes resources valued at AUD 2 million (USD 1.5 million) over the life of the Project. The Project aims to support sustainable national and sub-national community-based fisheries management to enhance food security, nutrition, and diversified livelihoods for the people of Kiribati, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu.

CBFM Phase 2 is framed within the New Song for Coastal Fisheries - Pathways to Change: the Noumea strategy (the New Song). The New Song calls for a stronger, coordinated approach to coastal fisheries development and management. Its pathways for change outline actions that national governments and all stakeholders need to commit to in support of a community-driven approach.

The impact pathways are built on a set of assumptions and change mechanisms that enable or constrain progress toward improved wellbeing of communities and more productive coastal ecosystems. The Project will test these assumptions and the causal mechanisms for change. Understanding assumptions and change mechanisms will provide the necessary contextual basis for accelerating change and allow generalizable lessons. Central to these impact pathways are investments in partnerships from participatory action research at the scale of community, to capacity building and counterpart relationships with regional organisations. Social inclusion and equity are critical to accelerating progress toward impacts.

By the end of the Phase 2, the Project will have built capacity in research and management in national and sub-national agencies and in communities. Policy outcomes will include improved sub-national and national law and policy, and integration of fish into rural development policy through whole-of-government approaches to nutrition outcomes.

The Project aims to improve the wellbeing of half the population dependent on coastal fisheries in Kiribati, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu within its timeframe. The Project will work directly with men and women in at least 4,000 households in 50 communities and reach many more through scaling strategies developed under the umbrella of the New Song. Through sustainable partnerships, and by building individual and institutional capacity, the Project will contribute to spreading impacts to most Pacific coastal communities by 2030.

In addition to activities on coastal fisheries management, the project will seek outcomes from dietary interventions in rural communities and national and regional analyses of fish in national and regional food systems to raise the profile of the nutritional contribution of fish and to influence policy and practice. This work is not listed as a New Song outcome but directly contributes to one of the overarching outcomes, that of improved wellbeing for coastal communities.