Tanzania: On 5 and 6 November 2023, the 2nd MSPforum for Africa took place in Dar es Salaam and brought together 55 experts working in Africa to discuss the opportunities and challenges of MSP in the continent. The event was co-organized by the UNESCO Dar es Salaam Field Office, the IOC-UNESCO and its Subcommission IOCAFRICA, as well as the African Union and UNEP Regional Seas that have African parties (Abidjan, Barcelona and Nairobi Conventions).
The 2nd MSPforum for Africa marked a shift from the previous online Regional MSPforums, being a revitalizing in-person event with a robust agenda, reflecting the commitment to MSP of the regional co-organizers.
The first day of the event stood in the spotlight of MSP and Ocean Literacy: The initiating sessions were jointly implemented with the Ocean Literacy Dialogues which took part in the same venue (4 and 5 November 2023) and aimed to provide input to the development of ocean literacy materials for MSP processes in Africa. One of the keynotes given was by co-organizer Bonface Mutisya of the Nairobi Convention Secretariat about a webinar series on increasing awareness about MSP for a broad audience in the Western Indian Ocean.
The second day started with a panel on the African Union Blue Economy Strategy, especially on its address to Member States to institutionalise MSP to allocate specific spaces for maritime activities and ecosystem conservation. For this, Leah Wanambwa from the African Union Sustainable Environment and Blue Economy Directorate (AU-SEBE), and Joel Mokenye from the African Union Interafrican Bureau for Animal Resources (AU-IBAR) shared information about the African Union’s efforts on stage before the session opened into a dialogue for all participants.
The following session was an introduction to several MSP tools such as this virtual workspace for MSP practitioners developed by PAP/RAC, and the WIO-Symphony, a tool for assessing cumulative impact assessments in support of MSP in the Western Indian Ocean.
In the afternoon, the last sessions centered around MSP and Regional Seas referencing several regional MSP frameworks such as of the Western Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean. In addition, Yacoub Issola explained how the Abidjan Convention is currently supporting transboundary MSP in Benin and Togo, and Roman Sorgenfrei from GIZ presented the MARISMA project which is implementing MSP in the Benguela Current Large Marine Ecosystem.
The event was co-funded by the Government of Sweden as a contribution to implementing the Ocean Decade Africa Roadmap and the Updated MSProadmap. If you wish to dive deeper into specific sessions, you can download all presentations of the event here and scroll through our photo gallery. In addition, a detailed conference report is in the making and will be available here soon.