UNEP & EC Workshop on Regional Ocean Governance

On 9 and 10 November 2015, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the European Commission (EC) organized a joint expert workshop on Regional Ocean Governance at the UN House in Brussels with key representatives from the international and regional ocean governance organizations including Regional Seas and fisheries Conventions and Instruments.

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The objective of the workshop was to share the knowledge and lessons learnt from regional ocean governance experiences in different marine regions globally and identify key elements that will inform and facilitate further work on ocean governance at all levels including feeding into a public consultation on international Ocean Governance, which was launched in June 2015. The meeting was conducted within the framework of a strengthened EC-UNEP Memorandum of Understanding signed in 2014.

Key discussions were held on the existing regional ocean governance frameworks and their mandates, efficiencies and coverage . In the Mediterranean, the Barcelona Convention and its Mediterranean Action Plan (MAP), which is one of the regional seas programmes administered by UNEP and to which the EC is a Party, has enjoyed a long standing cooperation with the EC.  On African Ocean Governance the strategy development and initiatives of Nairobi Convention were highlighted as well as cooperation between regional fisheries bodies and regional seas in West, Central and Southern Africa and inter-regional cooperation on ocean governance. Collective arrangements  in the framework of the the Convention for the Protection of the Marine Environment of the North-East Atlantic (OSPAR ) and the North East Atlantic Fisheries Commission (NEAFC)were part of the discussion on possible models for inter-sectoral ocean governance.

Conclusions included an urgent need to strengthen the capacities and effectiveness of existing institutional frameworks for oceans governance worldwide, including the UNEP Regional Seas mechanisms, as important vehicles to implement, monitor and review the UN Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 14^[1] and other SDGs related to oceans at national and all other levels. Mainstreaming and implementation of SDG 14 and related SDGs within the existing ocean governance frameworks is crucial. The advantage of a regional approach for SDG implementation is its capacity to facilitate country implementation and harmonization of country actions targeting specific marine ecosystems.

Workshop presentations can be found here.

[1] Conserve and Sustainably Use Oceans, Seas and Marine Resources for Sustainable Development; http://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/sustainable-development-goals/