ECPR

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ECPR

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Progress with Addressing Fragmentation of Ocean Governance at Regional and National Levels in the Wider Caribbean

Environmental Policy
Governance
Regionalism
Comparative Perspective

Abstract

The Wider Caribbean is arguably the world’s most geopolitically complex region, with 30 countries and 16 territories. Most are developing countries and 16 are small island developing states (SIDS). Ocean and coastal ecosystem services are critical, are at risk from intensive use and need restoring and rebuilding. The countries recognize that, to address this risk, international collaboration is essential to build collective capacity and take transboundary action necessary for achieving the 2030 SDGs, particularly Goal 14. Around 25 regional organisations currently have mandates for various aspects of sustainable use of marine ecosystems. There have been efforts to promote region-wide approaches, most notably the Association of Caribbean States (ACS) Caribbean Sea Initiative and the Caribbean Sea Large Marine Ecosystem (CLME) Project. The ACS and Caribbean Community (CARICOM) have promoted a regional agenda through a United Nations General Assembly resolution, and the CLME Project has directly approached rationalizing roles and responsibilities among regional organisations at a more technical level. Also notable is the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) subregional ocean governance initiative. The initial CLME Project (2009-2013) undertook a Transboundary Diagnostic Analysis of governance arrangements upon which a 10 year Strategic Action Programme (SAP) was developed and signed by ministers of 25+ countries. The first period of SAP implementation under the subsequent CLME+ Project (2015-2020) includes regional, subregional and national activities that build transboundary ocean governance capacity through learning-by-doing. It also includes the scoping of institutional and financing options for an overall coordinating mechanism, and its establishment.