Innovation in Partnerships Workshop Identifies Next Steps in Achieving UN Goal for Healthy Oceans

The event brought together dozens of stakeholders from industry, government, the UN, and civil society who took steps to build alliances and outline action items to prepare for The Ocean Conference in June.

The inaugural Innovation in Partnerships workshop, facilitated by Secure Fisheries, a program of One Earth Future, was attended by several UN ambassadors representing missions to many coastal countries and included remarks by H.E. Peter Thomson, president of the Seventy-First General Assembly of the United Nations, and Ambassador Olof Skoog, the Permanent Representative of Sweden to the United Nations.

“By attending this meeting, Mr. Thomson and the ambassadors showed their leadership in realizing the ambitious goals of SDG14,” said Larry Sampler, president of OEF.  “They understand that a multi-stakeholder approach is vital to achieving sustainable development for our oceans.” 

Going forward, Secure Fisheries will lead working groups made up of various stakeholders to make progress on the ideas generated at the Innovation in Partnerships workshop, including:

1.      Tracking progress on all partnerships and voluntary commitments.

2.      Ensuring access to reliable data by establishing a data-collection hub to better identify gaps in data and avoid overlapping efforts, while building trust and creating synergies between the various communities of practice, including governments, scientists and industry.

3.      Focusing on drivers which create the incentives for implementing SDG 14. For example, by promoting the economic benefits of implementing SDG 14 to finance ministries and industry representatives worldwide. 

4.      Building a global communication strategy that provides an aspirational vision for oceans.

These outcomes will begin to define the themes and partnership dialogues for the UN High Level Conference: The Ocean Conference to be held in June.

“The participants at the event appreciated the diverse stakeholders holding open discussions on progress towards SDG 14,” said Mary Anne Feeney, director of external relations at IPI. “They recognized the unique perspectives that this meeting offered with industry, NGOs, scientists, and UN staff at the table.”

For more information please contact Debra Havins of One Earth Future at 303-533-1712 or [email protected].

About One Earth Future:

OEF is a self-funded, private operating foundation seeking to create a more peaceful world through collaborative, data-driven initiatives. We focus on enhancing maritime cooperation, creating sustainable jobs in fragile economies and our research actively contributes to thought leadership on global issues.

Secure Fisheries is an OEF programs whose mission is to help East African communities build sustainable fishing practices, improve food and economic security and combat illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing (IUU).   

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