Moving towards implementation and impact on the ground
Our Blue Future (OBF) developed a three-year strategy (2023-2025), which will be implemented through a collaborative OBF system involving government agencies, the private sector, local communities, and development partners. The strategy is to deliver on three strategic pillars:
Empowering stakeholders
Improving integrated ocean governance
Promoting sustainable investment and financial flows in the blue economy sectors.
Thematic action areas were identified as the following: Blue tourism, circular economy, community livelihoods, ports and shipping, blue finance, fisheries, blue technology, and nature-based solutions/grey-green infrastructure.
Concrete activities are being implemented in the pilot country of Mozambique, including work on circular economy and the development of a Club of Friends for Maputo National Park.
Establishing strategic partnerships with key institutions which can be used as a model of how private companies and other actors can collaborate to support coastal and marine protected areas in a more systematic and effective manner.
Designing a structure for collaboration in a participatory manner and then mobilizing more partners of aligned vision to implement together.
For long-term results, it is important to forge strategic partnerships that capitalize on private sector interests while supporting sustainable livelihoods and marine and coastal conservation.
OBF session at the Marine Regions Forum 2023 held in November 2023, Dar es Salaam discussing the involvement of the private sector in ocean governance
Our Blue Future initiative
OBF session at the Marine Regions Forum 2023 held in November 2023, Dar es Salaam discussing the involvement of the private sector in ocean governance
Our Blue Future initiative
The private sector has a profound role to play in catalyzing and accelerating the transition to an inclusive sustainable blue economy (ISBE). There has, however, been minimal private sector engagement in ISBE matters. Our Blue Future has developed a private sector engagement strategy, which focuses on effective ways to engage the private sector and the benefits they can gain.
The private sector is driven by opportunities, value creation, financial risk, operational risks, and regulatory risks. Our Blue Future offers the private sector opportunities through Innovation Teams to mobilize resources, a showcase platform, a collective voice for advocacy, an innovation testing ground, matchmaking with other partners, a sense of community, and the chance to build a legacy.
Having a clear framework, structures, and forms developed on how to engage the private sector is essential to ensure all partners have equal participation rights.
Honest dialogue and building a common understanding between partners help foster collaboration and alignment of goals to avoid the notion that private sector partners have more influence over decisions within the multi-stakeholder initiative.
Building interest and partnerships by highlighting the benefits of collaboration beyond economic benefits is essential.
Defining roles and responsibilities of private sector partners helps establish clarity and ensures that each partner contributes their unique expertise and resources to the collaboration.
Pre-screening potential partners to ensure productive partnerships, which involves assessing their capabilities, values, and alignment with the objectives of the initiative.
Clustering private sector partners into different sectors based on their interests has been useful, such as through OBF’s Innovation Teams. This clustering approach enables focused collaboration within specific industries or areas, fostering synergies and maximizing impact.
Partners of Our Blue Future (OBF) model a culture of dialogue and collaboration, and work together as peers through a multi-stakeholder approach - a structured, transparent, and participatory collaboration between two or more stakeholder groups working towards a common goal. It offers an opportunity to generate innovative, appropriate, locally owned, and ultimately sustainable solutions, supporting transformative change.
The multi-stakeholder approach is reflected in OBF’s set-up:
The Preliminary Steering Team co-designs the strategy, steers the alliance, monitors implementation, and evaluates impact
Multi-stakeholder Task Teams support the development of governance, stakeholder engagement, and communication strategies
a Secretariat ensures smooth operation and coordination
Innovation Teams tackle critical, sector-specific challenges through concrete actions and projects
a Transformation Network includes multi-stakeholder partnerships across the WIO region.
The Collective Leadership Institute (CLI) plays a key role in supporting OBF’s multi-stakeholder approach and strengthening the capacities of its members. It contributes expertise in bringing leadership concepts to enliven the alliance by encouraging a high-quality, inclusive, and action-oriented stakeholder engagement and dialogue process within OBF.
Partners are willing to collaborate on eye level as peers. Each partner contributes different resources and complementary competencies to maximize value and impact toward OBF’s shared vision for the WIO region.
Partners engaged in a very participatory and co-creative process to develop OBF’s Transformation Network Blueprint and to prioritize actions related to its objectives; ownership is high and momentum growing for further implementation.
Bringing together partners with different approaches, cultures, values, and interests in an equitable manner that delivers value for all requires collaboration capacity, intention, and sustained effort. Given the wide array of stakeholders, co-developing a shared vision is important to create a sense of ownership and inspiration. It also ensures full participation rights for all key stakeholder groups.
Establishing a mechanism to measure impact and results is necessary, alongside measuring the vitality of the OBF collaboration ecosystem to ensure that all partners continue to share a common understanding of the initiative’s relative strengths and areas for development to inform planning.
Political will and a mandate for developing a multi-stakeholder initiative to strengthen Inclusive Sustainable Blue Economy in the WIO region
Our Blue Future (OBF) Officially Launched During WIOMSA 2022 Symposium
Our Blue Future initiative
Proceedings of the WIOMSA 2022 Symposium
Our Blue Future initiative
The Western Indian Ocean (WIO) region is recognized globally as a biodiversity hotspot with high ecological and socio-economic value. However, with increased global demand for natural resources, pollution, climate change, and a diversity of unsustainable economic activities, the region’s fragile coastal and marine ecosystems are under threat. In response to this, efforts and innovative solutions are urgently required as a business-as-usual scenario will likely result in the depletion of coastal and marine resources and associated socio-economic benefits. Starting in 2020, to bolster collective leadership between state, private sector, and civil society actors, GIZ’s Western Indian Ocean Governance Initiative (WIOGI) and partners supported discussions to develop a regional multi-stakeholder initiative for an Inclusive Sustainable Blue Economy in the Western Indian Ocean region. This proposal was presented and endorsed during the tenth Nairobi Convention Conference of Parties (Decision CP.10/12) in November 2021.
Having an official mandate is an essential success factor for such a participatory, multi-stakeholder, and multi-sectoral process. It helps create ownership for the process and continuous collaboration within the Our Blue Future alliance.
It is important to have a clear role for governments in a multi-stakeholder initiative. Without an appropriate role for government actors, their willingness to join the initiative becomes challenging.
Multi-stakeholder and collective leadership approaches are essential to engaging in high-quality dialogue among key actors, an essential basis for forming action-oriented partnerships across the region.
Drones play a pivotal role in the 3LD-Monitoring system, complementing other data collection methods.Drones are essential tools in partner countries to fortify technical skills among local staff. These skills encompass flight planning, navigation and image evaluation. The drone monitoring aims to empower project staff to capture data tailored for photogrammetric analyses, from which crucial geoinformation emerges.
The drone mapping methodology encompasses five stages, with the first two focusing on drone operations:
Mapping mission preparation (desktop work)
Mapping mission execution (fieldwork)
Development of Digital Surface Model (DSM) & Orthomosaic generation (desktop work)
Data analysis and refinement (desktop work)
Integration into the prevailing data system (desktop work)
Drone data aids in evaluating indicators linked to carbon/biomass, such as mortality rates and forest types. Notably, with the application of allometric equations and proper characterization of the land type, above-ground biomass estimations of trees can be determined.
Drones with pre-set flight planning capability ensure seamless orthophoto creation from individual images. This enables individual snapshots to seamlessly merge into an orthophoto (aerial photograph corrected for distortions, allowing accurate measurements). It's also vital to consider the availability of these drones in the local markets of partner countries. Leveraging local knowledge by involving local academia is paramount in this process. They can provide essential allometric equations, grounded in tree height, that facilitate precise biomass calculations.
Drones generate high resolution images, allowing a detailed overview of land cover changes, tree survival and erosion rates, among others. Combined with field data, drone-based monitoring is strengthened, guaranteeing a sound monitoring.
The heterogeneity of trees and vegetation density often hinders a sound extraction of common key points between the images, which is necessary to estimate the heights and other indicators. In this regard, increasing the overlap between images to a minimum of 85 % frontal and side overlap can improve the extraction of key points. Also, increasing the flight height of the drone reduces perspective distortion, which facilitates the detection of visual similarities between overlapping images. However, too much overlapping, i.e., high overlapping percentages result in higher amount of data, making data processing more time intensive.
Another aspect already mentioned is the availability of suitable drones in the partner countries. Importing drones to the respective countries is difficult, and bureaucratic barriers persist.
Satellite data forms the bedrock of the 3LD-Monitoring system, harnessing the capabilities of open-source imagery from the Copernicus Sentinel-2 and LANDSAT satellites. An algorithm, meticulously developed by Remote Sensing Solutions (RSS) GmbH, revolutionizes this process. Users can seamlessly submit the shapefile of their area of interest, prompting the algorithm to automatically fetch and analyze relevant data. A spectrum of robust analyses are conducted including the 5-year vegetation trend using NDVI for assessing vegetation gains or losses, 5-year vegetation moisture analysis through NDWI, and a nuanced 5-year rainfall trend evaluation. Additionally, the algorithm facilitates the visualization of vegetation changes since the inception of the project, bolstering the monitoring framework with dynamic insights. Satellite data, a vital component of the 3LDM-Monitoring system, leverages open-source imagery from the Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission and LANDSAT satellites. For predefined areas, this data is automatically fetched and analyzed for specific parameters. Key analyses include a 5-year vegetation trend using NDVI as a proxy for vegetation gains or losses, a 5-year vegetation moisture trend through NDWI, and a 5-year rainfall trend. In addition vegetation changes from project start can be visualized.
Effective use of this building block hinges on users drawing and saving areas in GIS platforms like QGIS. Additionally, enhancing the shapefile with project specifics, such as start dates and FLR type, optimizes analysis. Proper training in these skills ensures accurate data input and tailored monitoring, making capacity building in these areas essential if not present.
While satellite data, especially open-source, offers broad insights, its capability for species identification is highly restricted, if not unattainable. This limitation emphasizes the indispensable role of field work in discerning species composition and characteristics. Additionally, understanding the innate constraints of satellite imagery, especially with young tree plantations, reinforces the need for integrating field and drone data to gain a comprehensive view of forest terrains.
Developing the Regional Ocean Governance Strategy through a co-creation process
Diverse representation of the ROGS Task Force that is co-developing the WIO Regional Ocean Governance Strategy (ROGS) during the ROGS Special Session at the 12th WIOMSA Scientific Symposium held in October 2022 in Gqeberha, South Africa.
Nairobi Convention
The ROGS Support Team supported a diverse WIO ROGS Task Force, involving state and non-state representatives from various sectors and organisations. This inclusive forum facilitated stakeholder dialogue and collaboration, with members providing inputs directly to the ROGS and expanding regional contributions by inviting stakeholders from their networks. The Task Force, along with key stakeholders, contributed strategic and technical insights to the ROGS through Technical Dialogues and regional events.
The Collective Leadership Institute (CLI) supported the Task Force through in-person workshops and online sessions to enhance collective leadership and collaboration. An experienced ocean governance advisor, Mr. Kieran Kelleher, played a key role in formulating strategy questions and compiling ROGS content.
The inclusive and participatory approach aimed to foster ownership, improving the quality, feasibility and credibility of the ROGS. If adopted at the next Nairobi Convention Conference of Parties, this ownership is expected to boost the strategy's implementation.
Clear process and goal outlined in the process architecture for drafting the ROGS together
Participant interest and openness for individual and collective contribution
Capacity development and process stewardship prioritized by CLI, emphasizing authentic participation, trust-building, and co-creation
Technical dialogues led by the Task Force, engaging sector-specific stakeholders and experts for a shared understanding and optimal policy recommendations
Weekly online meetings of the ROGS Support Team, organized by CLI to ensure a high-quality process
Need to assign clear roles within the process including someone who drives the process forwards according to set timelines
Both process leadership and technical leadership
Consideration of financing and resourcing as an integral part of the ROGS
