July 31, 2022 (MOGADISHU, Somalia): The Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) today wrapped-up the IGAD Member States National Blue Economy Strategy Development Training in Mogadishu.
The three-day training workshop was aimed at supporting member states develop their own national blue economy strategy and domesticating the IGAD Blue Economy Strategy which was endorsed at a ministerial meeting in April this year in Addis Ababa.
The training workshop brought together delegates from IGAD member states’ ministries and institutions involved in the Blue Economy (BE) sector, Country Focal points for the Blue Economy and partners. Moreover, IGAD Blue Economy team and the Agriculture and Environment Division Gender Expert, a COMESA delegate and the Indian Ocean Commission (IOC)-ECOFISH Programme Team Leader joined the training to share regional experiences.
The first day focused on exchange of experiences among the IGAD member states presented by Blue Economy National Focal Persons. The second day and the third day was dedicated to sharing of existing regional Blue Economy strategies and also mainstreaming cross-cutting issues (gender, climate and research/innovation).
Speaking during the official opening session,the Minister of Fisheries and Marine Resources for the Federal Republic of Somalia, Abdillahi Bidhan Warsame, stated that “the Republic of Somalia’s vision of the Blue Economy is to ensure the contribution of the Blue Economy to national economic transformation with social equity, environmental sustainability, and economic viability and will help guide the country in developing a clear implementation plan and governance framework to efficiently make use of the Blue Economy resources”. He also added that “oceans face major challenges like climate change, pollution, and biodiversity loss. These in turn threaten development gains and economic growth. Many natural disasters we witness, such as hurricanes and tsunami originate in the oceans”.
As the workshop closed today, the below constitute the major outcomes:
- key national Blue Economy Experts to support the development of national Blue Economy strategies to the IGAD Member States were trained,
- similar format to serve as a basis for the draft the national BE strategies were developed;
- existing best experiences on the development of national BE strategies were shared; and
- Gender and other crosscutting issues were addressed.
