As part of Stockholm+50, SEI co-organized a side event focusing on building partnerships to promote a sustainable blue economy, sports and environment. Karina Barquet from SEI and Mistra Geopolitics provided insights about the geopolitics of the blue economy at this side event.
The first part of the event focused on science, innovations and investments in blue economy, while the second part focused on sports, specifically, actions by athletics federations to champion air quality and climate actions.
Along with twelve panelists, Karina Barquet highlighted tangible outputs from Science, Research and Innovation for Harnessing the Blue Economy, a synthesis of academic presentations made during the Science and Research Symposium of the first-ever Sustainable Blue Economy Conference (SBEC) held in Nairobi in 2018.
This publication presents key science and technology issues identified by the participants of the conference as critical to spur action to meet the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 14 on the oceans.
“Strengthening science and technology capacity in Africa is critical to the full realization of the potential of blue economy to enable the continent meet the development goals as exposed in the African Union Agenda 2063,” said SEI Africa Centre Director Philip Osano.
“This requires massive investment in research capacity and partnerships to facilitate the commercialization of research innovations. SEI will continue to support African governments and scientific institutions to strengthen their research and innovation capacities as part of the implementation of the Africa Blue Economy Strategy.”
A key takeaway from the event was that building partnerships to advance the blue economy is key to sustainably harness the oceans and blue economy globally. We may live in different parts of the world, but the challenges are similar, so the ocean race is a race with a purpose.
The event was organized in partnership between the Government of Kenya, specifically the State Department for Fisheries, Aquaculture and the Blue Economy and the Ministry of Sports, Culture and Heritage, and SEI.
Featured: Dr Karina Barquet
Karina is contributing to the Sustainable Oceans theme within Mistra Geopolitics, where she’s leading the geopolitics of the blue economy project. Her research at SEI focuses on the political dimensions of coastal governance, including disaster risk reduction, water security, and critical infrastructures in coastal planning.
Karina Barquet
Text by Brenda Ochola, SEI Communications Lead for Stockholm+50 and Karina Barquet, SEI Team Lead. Edited for Mistra Geopolitics by Ana Calvo, Communications Assistant and Ylva Rylander, Communications Officer, both at SEI.
