At the EU-organized “Our Ocean” conference, held in Malta from 5-6 October 2017, the EU and Germany jointly pledged support for the Partnership for Regional Ocean Governance (PROG).
“By 2020, we will be developing a forum to strengthen regional ocean governance,” said the first vice-president of the European Commission in his conference statement in front of numerous heads of government, ministers and high-level representatives from business, civil society and science.
The PROG was jointly initiated in 2015 by IASS, the Institute for Sustainable Development and International Relations (IDDRI) and TMG – Think Tank for Sustainability, as well as the United Nations Environment Program.
The aim is to promote the development of solution-oriented governance approaches in key marine regions and the exchange of experiences among each other. Previous and current projects of the PROG are concerned with the SDG 14 Implementation in the West Indian Ocean (funded by the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development) and the protection of the high seas in the Southeast Atlantic and Southeast Pacific (funded by the International Climate Protection Initiative of the BMUB). These initiatives should now be extended through the development of a dialogue-forum of the marine regions with representatives of science, civil society and politics. Germany had already announced its support of the so-called “PROG Forum” at the UN Ocean conference on the implementation of Sustainable Development Goal 14 in June 2017 in New York.
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