Development banks pledge to work for “blue finance roadmap”
Cartagena (Colombia), Sept 5 (EFE) – Eight public development banks signed a pledge on Tuesday in Cartagena to promote the protection and sustainable use of oceans and marine and coastal ecosystems.
The roadmap is named “A Call to Deliver Positive Action For The Ocean” and aims to improve coordination among public development banks. Updates on its progress will be presented at the upcoming United Nations Ocean Conference in France in 2025.
The signatories are the Inter-American Development Bank, the Development Bank of Latin America and the Caribbean, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the European Investment Bank, the Asian Development Bank, the West African Development Bank, the French Development Agency and the German Development Bank.
“Positive Action for the Ocean”
The statement begins, “The ocean is a major source of the planet’s biodiversity and plays a vital role in the climate system. It provides a wide range of ecosystem services, supplies us with oxygen to breathe, contributes to food security, nutrition and decent jobs and livelihoods.”
Therefore, it argues, the protection and sustainable use of the oceans are “key to achieving sustainable development and poverty eradication”.
The declaration states that there is an “ocean finance gap” and an urgent need for “adequate, accessible, new and predictable financial resources to support a sustainable blue economy”.
As a result, the signatories committed to “identify financing gaps and realistic funding opportunities, facilitate knowledge sharing and encourage accountability.”
Vice president of the European Investment Bank, Ricardo Mourinho, said that with this cooperation the banks will be able to “work for the planet and the ocean, critical assets”.
Meanwhile, the manager of Climate Action and Positive Biodiversity of the Development Bank of Latin America, Alicia Montalvo, said that “there is no green without blue” and “there is no blue without green”.
“In the Caribbean, 80% of people depend on the ocean, and in Latin America, 50% of us depend on the oceans. We are talking about water and people. We must change the way we work for that,” she said.
OBJECTIVES OF THE ROADMAP
The banks pledged to support a “sustainable blue economy” by financing the reduction of ocean pollution through wastewater, stormwater and solid waste infrastructure.
They will also invest in marine protected areas, green ports, greener shipping, marine renewable energy, the circular economy, and other less traditional sectors such as sustainable aquaculture, blue biotech, ocean data, restoration, and blue carbon sequestration.
The idea is to go beyond the “do no harm” principle and to take a proactive approach that makes “as substantive a contribution as possible” and “do maximum good.” EFE pbd-jga/ics (photo)
