BY OLATUNJI ABIODUN DANIEL
The Co-Chairs of the Third UN Ocean Conference (UNOC) have invited inputs from civil society organizations (CSOs) to share feedback and expectations for the event. CSOs are invited to respond to “a call to all the voices of the ocean” by participating in a global consultation that is open until 15 June 2023.
The Third UN Ocean Conference will convene in Nice, France, in June 2025. It will be co-chaired by the Governments of France and Costa Rica. In June 2024, Costa Rica will host a stakeholder meeting.
Olivier Poivre d’Arvor, Special Envoy of the President of France for the UN Ocean Conference, and Gina Guillen Grillo, Director General of External Affairs, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Worship, Costa Rica, have published an open letter, announcing that they have asked Rémi Parmentier, Co-Founder, The Varda Group, and Loreley Picourt, Executive Director, Ocean & Climate Platform, to facilitate civil society engagement.
The Co-Chairs emphasize that, drawing on the UNOC’s previous editions in 2017 and 2022, the Third UN Ocean Conference must generate transformative action and provide solutions the ocean needs, supported by ocean science and funding for SDG 14 (life below water) – “the two legs,” on which they propose the Conference “stand and walk towards a ‘Summit of Ocean Action.’”
CSOs are invited to respond to the following five questions:
- Based on your experience with previous UN Ocean Conferences, what would you replicate and what would you do differently as NGOs, but also if you were the conference organizers?
- As NGOs, how do you want to position yourselves, and how do you want to be remembered for your participation in the Third UN Ocean Conference?
- What are your three to five key deliverables for the Third UN Ocean Conference (e.g., in terms of public policy, governance, finance, science, innovation)?
- As ocean advocates, where do you want to bring governments and the private sector, and how do you propose to bring them on board to uplift SDG 14?
- Do you think the Third UN Ocean Conference should provide an opportunity to identify action beyond SDG 14, five years before 2030?
Following an admissibility screening, submissions will be made public, and an informal summary report will be published in September 2023. The inputs will help identify priorities of action to inform the French and Costa Rican Governments’ planning of the Conference.