Western Indian Ocean Science to Policy Platform Series - Volume 1, Issue 1

This first volume of the Western Indian Ocean (WIO) Science-Policy series is themed ‘Transitioning to a Sustainable Blue Economy in the WIO region: Addressing the challenges and harnessing opportunities’. This series is produced by the Nairobi Convention and WIOMSA. The Contracting Parties of the Nairobi Convention, through various COP Decisions, have emphasized the need to strengthen the linkage between science and policy for evidence-based decisions to conserve coastal and marine resources in the WIO region. This issue contains articles that reflect the ongoing initiatives in the region to bring science and policy together and the ongoing discussions regarding how WIO scientists can contribute to Blue growth in the region over the long term.

 

While there have been ongoing science-policy interactions in the WIO over the last 15 years, these have generally been of an ad hoc nature and driven by specific projects or programmes. It was the Eighth Meeting of the Contracting Parties to the Nairobi Convention held in 2015 that approved the decision to establish a dialogue platform to strengthen the links between science, policy and action (CP8/12). Thereafter, the Platform structure and its procedures were developed and approved leading to its first meeting on 23rd-25th March 2021. The first meeting was held virtually and attended by 174 participants and 33 policy discussion papers were presented, 29 of which are included in the first issue of this volume.

 

This series is intended to record the deliberations of this formalized structure going forward, to ensure these important contributions are widely disseminated. Volume 1, Issue 1 is available for download below.

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