Western Indian Ocean States discuss ‘Green Economy’ |13 December 2013

Environment experts, partners, stakeholders - parties to the Nairobi Convention and representatives of different UN environment agencies are taking part in a three-day working session taking place here to discuss the ‘Green  Economy in a Blue World for the Western Indian Ocean’ region.

The Nairobi Convention provides a mechanism for regional cooperation, coordination and collaborative actions in the Eastern and Southern African region , the Western Indian Ocean, that enables the Contracting Parties to harness resources and expertise from a wide range of stakeholders and interest groups towards solving interlinked problems of the coastal and marine environment including critical national and trans-boundary issues.

The Nairobi Convention for the Protection, Management and Development of the Marine and Coastal Environment of the Eastern African Region was signed in 1985 and came into force in 1996, making it one of 17 regional seas conventions and action plans. The Convention was amended and adopted in April, 2010.

The Contracting Parties to the Nairobi Convention are Comoros, France Reunion, Kenya, Madagascar, Mauritius, Mozambique, Seychelles, Somalia, Tanzania and the Republic of South Africa.

The main objective of the working sessions which opened Wednesday morning is to provide a platform for Contracting Parties to the Nairobi Convention to discuss at length the concept of Green Economy in a Blue World and its application at the national level- development and carrying out policies and strategies on the green economy that best suits the needs of coastal states in the Western Indian Ocean region.

Representatives from the United Nations Environment Programme (Unep), United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (Comesa) are also taking part in the discussions.

In remarks to launch the working session Environment and Energy Minister Rolf Payet said
more than 30 million people in the Western Indian Ocean islands and Eastern African coastal region rely on the oceans and coastal environment for goods and services and as a source of livelihoods and income.

For our sub-region, the economic value of the ocean and coastal ecosystem goods and services is estimated to be over US $25 billion annually and the two core sectors of blue economy i.e. coastal tourism and fisheries contribute significantly towards this figure.

He pointed out that  if we are to consider other non-monetary benefits such as science, education and food security then there should be no doubt in our mind that our very survival as functioning sovereign states is closely intertwined with the blue economy.

“While we all have a general understanding of the importance of the blue capital to coastal economies, there are still insufficient efforts at the global, regional and national level to give it the importance that it needs. Until now there have been very limited efforts to develop methodologies to determine the real value of the oceanic and coastal environment and its associated natural resources contribution to coastal economies,” said Minister Payet.

“There is a great need as was recognised in the Rio + 20 processes to include it in our economic accounting system and thereby look beyond GDP as the sole measure of wealth of a nation. Accounting for the real value of our blue capital is central to our development – as it will send the correct signal to decision makers on the importance and value of our coastal and marine environment,” added Minister Payet.

“Effective realisation of the blue economy will require reforming and strengthening our institutional framework for sustainable development. It will have to be robust but flexible enough to respond effectively to current and future challenges,” he said.

He expressed the hope that the results of the three days of discussions will also contribute greatly towards our understanding of the institutional framework that will be required at the national and sub-regional level to implement the blue economy.

For his part Dixon Waruinge, the head of the Nairobi Convention, said coastal countries of the region are concerned about the green economy because they all have coastal tourism, coastal mining, coastal agriculture and aquaculture to deal with among other issues.

He stressed that trans-boundary resources must be managed using regional platforms so therefore countries of the region need to work together to find ways  to  better share and manage trans-boundary marine and coastal resources collectively. He said the three-day discussions will expect to clearly define all that.