Ocean and coastal area governance

A Blueprint for Ocean and Coastal Sustainability

"A Blueprint for Ocean and Coastal Sustainability", jointly prepared by UNDP’s Water & Ocean Governance Programme, IOC/UNESCO, FAO and IMO, contextualizes and sets forth a series of ten tangible proposals to shift the oceans management paradigm towards sustainability, and is more

A Green Economy in a Blue World

The objective of ‘Green Economy in a Blue World’ is to analyse the challenges and opportunities of a potential transition towards a green economy in key sectors heavily linked to the marine and coastal environment – the blue world. The report will also analyse the necessary policy and more

Catalysing Ocean Finance

The world’s oceans and coastal areas are an integral part of life on earth. They are under significant threat, whether that be from pollution, overexploitation, habitat loss, invasive species, or climate change. Catalysing Ocean Finance demonstrates that, far from being an intractable more

From Ridge to Reef: Water, Environment, and Community Security

The Global Environment Facility (GEF) is the largest financial institution with the mandate, ability, and experience to address current and future challenges to shared freshwater and marine systems. The publication explores a handful of the GEF International Waters projects that have already more

Frontline Observations on Climate Change and Sustainability of Large Marine Ecosystems

The growing risks and impacts of climate change and the accompanying loss of ecosystem services require the world to urgently invest in a new development paradigm. As the UN’s global development network, UNDP recognizes the increasing urgency of mainstreaming climate change into sustainable more

International Waters: Review of Legal and Institutional Frameworks

The report discusses the legal and institutional frameworks that apply to 28 international water bodies that were identified as part of the United Nations Development Programme-Global Environment Facility (UNDP-GEF) "Good Practices and Portfolio Learning in GEF Transboundary Freshwater and more

Issue Brief: Toward Ocean Recovery

Large Marine Ecosystems (LMEs) annually produce 80% of the world’s marine fish catch. These coastal ocean areas are overfished, polluted, and subject to nutrient over enrichment, acidification, accelerated warming from climate change, loss of biodiversity and key habitat areas—including sea more

Latin America and the Caribbean: A Biodiversity Superpower (Chapter 7)

The report highlights the economic contribution of biodiversity conservation and ecosystem services to development and equity in the Latin American and Caribbean region. The goal of this chapter is to foster further progress towards sustainable ecosystem management by providing policy makers with more

Oceans at Rio+20: How Well Are We Doing in Meeting the Commitments from the 1992 Earth Summit and the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development? Summary for Decision Makers

This publication was prepared by the civil society organization the Global Ocean Forum (www.globaloceans.org ) with financing and technical support from UNDP-GEF. It measures the progress made toward the broad goals, targets, and timetables established by the international community. The analysis more

Sustainable Development of the World’s Large Marine Ecosystems

The report "Sustainable Development of the World’s Large Marine Ecosystems during Climate Change" features papers that cover a range of key issues, from the impacts of climate change on Large Marine Ecosystems (LMEs) to new policy and institutional tools for LME governance. more

Toward Recovery and Sustainability of the World’s Large Marine Ecosystems During Climate Change

The integrity of all 64 of the World’s Large Marine Ecosystems (LMEs) and the livelihoods of billions of people that depend upon them are under threat not only from climate change, but also from overfishing, toxic pollution, nutrient over-enrichment, invasive species, habitat degradation, and more

UNDP-GEF International Waters Programme: Delivering Results

For over 15 years, UNDP-GEF has been providing support to assist over 100 countries in working jointly to identify, prioritize, understand, and address the key transboundary environmental and water resources issues of some of the world's largest and most significant shared waterbodies. This more

Issue Briefs

Ocean Hypoxia 'Dead Zones'

This Issue Brief looks at the causes, effects and solutions to hypoxia, drawing upon specific UNDP programmes addressing this problem, as well as bringing together a panel of experts, with links to video and presentations, of the 2012 GESAMP-UNDP seminar: 'Ocean Hypoxia and its impacts onecosystems and economies'.

Toward Ocean Recovery

Leaders engaged in sustainable development of the oceans from the world's top financial, scientific, and technical institutions, met in Boston in February 2013 to discuss the recovery and sustainability of Large Marine Ecosystems during climate change. Download this Issue Brief for links to video segments of the conference and additional resources.

Many of UNDP's relationships with countries and territories on the ground exceed 60 years. Find details on our successes and ongoing work.

Regional Presence

United Nations Development Programme