15th meeting of the Monaco Blue Initiative

The 15^th international meeting of the Monaco Blue Initiative (MBI) has been held on March 18, 2024, under the Presidency of HSH Prince Albert II of Monaco.

Like previous years, this edition brought together major players in Ocean conservation and governance to reflect on the challenges facing the future of the oceans, in a concrete and forward looking way.

Representatives of Governments, international organizations, civil society, NGOs, entrepreneurs of the private sector, members of the scientific community debated key topics as such as the objectives achieved and lessons learned from the past 15 years, the goals to aim for the decade to come, the role of the private sector to drive the shift towards a resilient Ocean, or the means needed to support a sustainable and generative blue economy and preserve marine ecosystems.

The meeting provided also updates on marine protected areas, deep-sea mining, ongoing negotiations for an international plastics treaty, the Ocean Rise and Resilience Coalition, and the third United Nations Ocean Conference (UNOC) in 2025.

In this last context, a Memorandum of Understanding had been signed between the Principality of Monaco, the French Organizing Committee for UNOC 2025, the Oceanographic Institute and the Prince Albert II foundation sealing their cooperation to organize the Blue Economy and Finance Forum on 7 and 8 June 2025, ahead of the UNOC which will be held in Nice from June 9 to 13, 2025.

As usually, the results and recommendations of the MBI will be brought to high level international discussions and negotiations on Ocean protection and governance such as the Convention on Biological Diversity, the United Nations Network Convention on Climate Change, the negotiations on Marine Biodiversity in Areas beyond National Jurisdiction and the International Marine Protected Areas Congress.