Sharing knowledge & building capacity for healthy oceans & coastal communities - Mission Blue

February 4, 2016

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Here’s a word from Blue Solutions, Mission Blue’s newest partner.


© Blue Solutions
© Blue Solutions

The global oceans community has created a wealth of inspiring “blue solutions” which successfully helped to overcome challenges to sustainable development and human wellbeing in the marine and coastal realm. The Blue Solutions Initiative provides a global knowledge sharing and capacity development platform for these success stories. They can inspire others to adapt and replicate these achievements without “reinventing the wheel,” thereby accelerating action to sustaining healthy marine and coastal ecosystems.

These blue solutions can illustrate a range of topics. Some are local, others are regional or even global. Some can provide insights into technical issues, while others feature good managerial practices. Essentially, they are all specific, applied examples of successful processes or approaches that address challenges of sustainable management and conservation of marine and coastal ecosystems. Since every solution is context specific, it cannot serve as a blueprint for replication as such. However, we believe there are core elements, “building blocks,” in each solution that determine its success and that can be adapted and recombined to address a similar challenge in different contexts. Distilling and sharing these solutions and their building blocks thus supports inter-sectorial knowledge transfer and enables mutual learning across regions and sectors.

© Blue Solutions
© Blue Solutions
4. DSC_9340
© Blue Solutions

The Blue Solutions Initiative facilitates exchanges around solutions through an interactive platform, the “Solutions Explorer,” as well as through face-to-face meetings. The online platform is a great way to support networking around successes and a global knowledge exchange, and allows reaching a broad audience. Still, we believe in the power of personal interactions and integrate solution exchange activities into different workshops, trainings and events. Face-to-face meetings, such as the two regional workshops we have organized for Asia & the Pacific and Latin America & the Wider Caribbean, allow practitioners and policy makers to learn about successful approaches from their region and be inspired to address challenges in their own context. This June, we’re meeting in Zanzibar, Tanzania for the Regional Forum on Solutions for Oceans, Coasts and Human Wellbeing in Africa.

© Blue Solutions
© Blue Solutions

Real-life implementation examples are also integrated as case studies into the Blue Solutions Initiative’s capacity development opportunities. These include trainings on some of our thematic focal areas, such as on the integration of ecosystem services into marine planning, and on coastal climate change adaptation. A training course on marine and coastal spatial planning and management is currently under development. All trainings are modular and can be combined to address your context and circumstances.

Blue Solutions is a sharing and collaboration initiative – if you’re interested in collaborating, if you have a success to share with the community, or would like to implement a training with us, do not hesitate to get in touch via .

Follow Blue Solutions on Twitter and Facebook, and find more information on the project on our website.

Mark Spalding, President of The Ocean Foundation, explaining Blue Solutions:

Mark Spalding on BlueSolutions from GRID-Arendal on Vimeo.

The Blue Solutions Initiative is implemented by GIZ, GRID-Arendal, IUCN and UNEP, and financed by the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Building and Nuclear Safety (BMUB) through the International Climate Initiative.

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