A framework for assessing producer empowerment in wild-capture marine fisheries: insights from MSC-certified fisheries in developing economies

Empowerment is increasingly recognised as a critical dimension of sustainability in marine fisheries, particularly in promoting equity. Recognising and reporting empowerment dynamics could enhance sustainability outcomes and build resilience in fishing communities. However, little is known about how management interventions, such as eco-certification schemes, render producer empowerment visible or not. This paper makes two contributions. First, we present a framework for assessing producer empowerment in wild-capture marine fisheries, comprising 59 attributes organised around the four pillars of full-spectrum sustainability and operationalising the resources-agency-achievements scaffolding, with each attribute mapped to one of six equity dimensions. Second, we demonstrate the framework’s application through a case study of 35 MSC-certified fisheries operating in developing economies, interrogating how producer empowerment is made visible in MSC Principle 3 documentation. Combining attribute-level scoring with ordination and qualitative profiling, we find a consistent governance baseline - including secure or customary rights, access to information, producer organisations, and transparent processes - yet uneven visibility of social and economic attributes. Differences were context-dependent rather than regionally uniform, with many small-scale systems performing similarly to larger fleets in the presence of strong institutions. The results indicate that eco-certification could contribute to fishery producer empowerment by either reinforcing existing empowerment or acting as a catalyst, but outcomes are highly dependent on wider social and institutional contexts, where visibility is shaped by reporting architectures. The framework’s structure does not presume any particular certification scheme as its subject, and applied to other reporting regimes, such as national fisheries assessments or fishery improvement projects, it would reveal distinct visibility profiles. Importantly, through the development of this initial framework, we show how empowerment could be measured using certification schemes given their rigorous frameworks and reporting structures. By using the MSC as a case study, we are also able to examine how eco-certification could catalyse or reinforce producer empowerment. Looking forward, the framework provides a portable instrument for tracking producer empowerment across different reporting regimes, where its application alongside complementary policy, capacity, and reporting reforms could help translate institutional inclusion into substantive empowerment in marine fisheries.