The 2023 Marine Regions Forum (MRF) conference in the Western Indian Ocean (WIO) region was held in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania, from 7 – 9 November 2023 under the title “Navigating ocean sustainability in the Western Indian Ocean”. The conference builds on the outcomes achieved and lessons learned from the first Marine Regions Forum conference in Berlin in 2019, but, for the first time, the conference took a regional focus as it was hosted in the WIO region.

As part of the 2023 MRF, GEF IW:LEARN co-organized the session on “Sharing the Regional Ocean Governance process in the WIO and beyond”, featuring GEF International Water (IW) projects and their contribution to the regional ocean governance process. It built on a major partnership-building meeting organized jointly by GEF, IOC/UNESCO, FAO, UNEP and UNDP in November 2017 in Cape Town*, with the objective to enhance cross-sectoral and ecosystem-based approaches to regional ocean governance. The 2023 dialogue provided the space to share experiences on examples and best practices of existing collaboration in the region and beyond. It was the first of a series of three regional ocean governance dialogue events aimed to further enhance collaboration at the global level with the principal partners responsible for the management of coastal and marine areas. The other two dialogues will take place in Asia-Pacific and Latin America and the Caribbean under the framework of GEF IW:LEARN5.

The 2023 MRF welcomed approximately 140 regional and global participants. More information can be found here: https://www.prog-ocean.org/marine-regions-forum/

* https://iwlearn.net/marine/capetown2017