Vol. 9 | December 2024

Last updated on 
Vol. 9 | December 2024

A note from GOAP's Co-Chairs

Dear GOAP friends and colleagues, 

This past quarter has seen the growth and strengthening of ocean accounting Communities of Practice in Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean and Europe as well as national workshops in Maldives, Sri Lanka, Belize and Costa Rica. In this edition of the newsletter, you will find an overview of these events as well as upcoming events in 2025 and new knowledge products from the global community. We thank the UK Government for their support for this work.

We commend the decision adopted at COP16 to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) that, for island biodiversity, ‘further efforts are needed... to enhance the use of ocean accounting and marine spatial planning to conserve and manage marine and coastal biodiversity in islands’ (Decision 16/1, Paragraph 2.(f)). Aligning ocean accounts with biodiversity targets enhances policymakers’ ability to guide and measure progress, develop effective conservation strategies, and ensure the sustainable use of marine resources. 

In late November, the GOAP Africa Community of Practice convened 50+ experts from 7 coastal nations to advance ocean accounting for sustainable development. Participants explored methods to integrate ocean accounts into governance, blue financing, and social accounting frameworks. This workshop reinforced the Africa Community of Practice's leadership in driving the adoption of ocean accounting across the continent, supporting national priorities and international environmental commitments. 

We are also excited to share that the Ministry of Blue Economy and Disaster Risk Management in Belize Signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the GOAP Secretariat in November 2024 to Advance Ocean Accounting for Sustainable Development in Belize. As one of the first examples in the Caribbean to promote data-driven-decision making, we commend this project and its advancement of GOAP’s Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) strategy. We look forward to future knowledge exchanges for regional cooperation in sustainable ocean governance. 

Continuing the leadership in ocean accounting in Latin America and the Caribbean, at COP16 to the CBD, Costa Rica re-affirmed their ambition to produce ocean accounts by 2030 and called for other countries to do the same. The announcement was made by the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Worship, Costa Rica, Arnoldo Andre Tinoco during the closing ceremony of COP16’s Oceans Day on 27 October. As Co-Chairs, we look forward to supporting Costa Rica and the GOAP Secretariat with this ambition.

We invite all countries to participate in the upcoming Ocean Accounts Exchange – "Building a Blueprint for Action", taking place in Costa Rica, March 2025. The event will foster dialogue on advancing the use of ocean accounts for evidence-based policy-making and encouraging a voluntary joint pledge on advancing ocean accounts by 2030 to be presented at UNOC 2025 in Nice, France. Being an invite-only event, we encourage you to write an expression of interest to the GOAP Secretariat at m.feoli_martinez@unsw.edu.au. 

In late November, over 3,200 delegates convened in the Republic of Korea for the fifth round of negotiations (INC-5) for the internationally legally binding instrument to end plastic pollution, including in the marine environment. Amongst attendees were several GOAP Members including World Resources Institute Indonesia and Cape Peninsula University of Technology, and a team from the GOAP Secretariat. The GOAP Secretariat attended to ensure strong provisions on transparency, accountability and reporting were included in the potential text. We see potential for the ocean accounts framework to be extended to provide a spatial approach that could be used to understand the distribution and potential sources of plastic pollution in both terrestrial and marine ecosystems. Find out more about INC-5 below from the GOAP Secretariat team on the ground. 

The GOAP Secretariat has also written multiple Expert Insights exploring how ocean accounts inform key policy priorities for sustainable ocean development, including more sustainable tourism, disaster risk resilience and the US$24 trillion opportunity of the sustainable blue economy. 

Wishing you a safe and happy holidays,  

Read the full Newsletter