In 2003, the FAO (Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations) published Technical Guidelines on the Ecosystems Approach to Fisheries Management (EAF) in response to international calls to manage fisheries in a more holistic and integrated manner. However, despite commitments from governments across the world to move towards an EAF, stakeholders involved in fisheries management lack understanding on what is meant by adopting an EAF and lack the practical tools to implement EAF. In particular, there are concerns that the social, economic and institutional dimensions of EAF are not well understood or integrated into policies, management plans and practices concerned with EAF. Thus in June 2006, an Expert Consultation was convened in Rome to develop a framework for technical guidelines on the economic, social and institutional considerations of applying the EAF.  A key recommendation emanating from this workshop was that FAO should publish a Technical Guideline on the social, economic and institutional dimensions of EAF. Consequently, a small team of 3 members of the expert consultation (Tony Charles, St Mary’s University, Halifax; Patrick McConney, University of West Indies, Barbados; and Merle Sowman, UCT, South Africa) were asked to undertake this work in collaboration with FAO and under the guidance of Cassandra de Young of FAO.