Background Information

The Wider Caribbean's marine resources are vital to the region's biodiversity, climate resilience, economic development and human well-being. Yet progress toward sustainable ocean management has often been constrained by fragmented initiatives, overlapping mandates and limited coordination across national and regional institutions. 

The Wider Caribbean Ocean Coordination Mechanism (OCM) was established to address this challenge.The OCM is a groundbreaking governance platform that provides a permanent, inclusive structure for aligning action, sharing knowledge, and optimizing the use of limited resources by enhancing coordination and collaboration across the region.

In preparation for the Our Oceans Conference (OOC) 2026 in Kenya, the OCM, together with regional and international partners, is convening a series of Wider Caribbean Ocean Webinars. These webinars will strengthen regional coordination, raise awareness of key ocean sustainability initiatives, and support governments in identifying and advancing new or strengthened commitments to be announced at the conference.

Outputs and commitments emerging from the webinar series will be consolidated and presented at a Wider Caribbean-led side event at the Our Oceans Conference, demonstrating the region's collective ambition and coordinated action on ocean sustainability.

 Objectives

1. Raise awareness of priority regional and global ocean sustainability initiatives through presentations by champion countries and lead proponents.

2. Mobilize governments to endorse or commit to these initiatives ahead of, or during the Our Ocean Conference through declarations of intent, pledges or formal commitments.

3. Identify capacity building needs to inform future training efforts, technical assistance and fundraising efforts while reducing duplication across regional initiatives. 

Desired Outcomes

Short term (by May 2026)

• The Wider Caribbean region submits a coordinated package of ocean commitments (“increased ambitions”) to the OOC Organizing Committee.

• Governments signal new or strengthened commitments related to key regional initiatives, including marine protection, ocean planning, ocean accounting and sustainable ocean finance.

Medium term (before end of GEF-8 funding cycle)

• Emerging Sustainable Ocean Plan proposals are aligned with the Sustainable Ocean Planning framework advanced through the Ocean Panel and supported through the Ocean Action 2030 implementation ecosystem,  and the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission’s (UNESCO) Global Strategy on Sustainable Ocean Planning and Management (2025-2030), as well as with existing regional frameworks, helping reduce fragmentation, duplication of efforts, and the emergence of parallel approaches.

• Regional coordination supports countries in developing high-quality proposals to the Global Environment Facility (GEF) and other financing partners, strengthening the pathway from planning to implementation, investment readiness, and delivery.

Programme/Themes

The Wider Caribbean Series of weekly Webinars will take place in a virtual modality, hosted and coordinated by the OCM Secretariat, with the support of partner champion countries and organizations. Each webinar will be approximately 2.5 Hours.

Topics include : 

• April 8th: Actioning Blue: Advancing shared 30x30 goals in the Wider Caribbean

Partners: Government of Dominica Republic,OECS, Government of Grenada,OECS,    Caribbean Biodiversity Fund.

• April 14th:  Essential Tools for sustainable Ocean Management , SOPs and SAPs 

Partners: Government of Jamaica, IOC UNESCO, WRI,

• April 21st: Accounting for people, nature and the economy; the Ocean Accounts Framework

Partners: Global Ocean Accounts Partnership, Government of Belize, 

• April  28th or 29th: Underwater Ocean Noise and Blue Nationally Determined Contributions

Partners: Government of Panama, Government of France

The format of each webinar will vary slightly, but will be split broadly into 2 parts. Part 1. Presentations/remarks by Countries/States & Technical partners, Part 2. Facilitated discussion with interested Countries/States & declarations of intent/commitments.