Ministerial Conference on Ocean Economy and Climate Change in Africa

Diversifying economies beyond land-based activities and along coasts all in a climate-intelligent way is critical to achieving the SDGs and delivering smart, sustainable and inclusive growth globally.  A success on the ocean economy and climate change agendas at COP-22 in Marrakesh would be to: (i) act on and implement the commitments made in Paris, (ii) help Africa adapt to a changing climate and (iii) mobilize resources to help it transition towards an inclusive, resilient and low-carbon trajectory, by maximizing the potential of one of its greatest assets - its oceans. The aspiration in Marrakesh is to deliver transformational investment packages to enhance Africa's capacity to build climate-resilient ocean economies, based on ecosystem carrying capacity. Some priority ocean-related action areas for Africa as part of a broader global ocean action agenda include fisheries and aquaculture, integrity of the coastline, ports and shipping, renewable energy, tourism, and horizontal themes such as capacity building and finance.

A series of analytical work and papers on key topics, areas and sectors (such as climate change, ocean economy, disasters and natural calamities, fisheries and aquaculture, renewable energy, ports and shipping, tourism, marine spatial planning, low-carbon growth and long-term sustainability, natural capital accounting, building centers of excellence, costs of pollution and degradation, etc.) will be commissioned, prepared and highlighted at the Conference. A series of public-private sector investment roundtables will be organized.

Event Holder: World Bank

Source of data: Africa Development Indicators, 2013, World Bank Climate Change Data 2011, Climate Change Knowledge Portal: Historical Data