(NEWS) Life Below Water 2017, Malmö

October

2017

Life Below Water 2017, Malmö

President Doumbia Henry was a keynote speaker at the Life Below Water Conference, 2017 that took place in Malmö, Sweden from 11 to 13 October. The overriding theme for the event was local implementation of UN Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 14: Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development.

The City of Malmö organized Life Below Water 2017 in collaboration with Kommunenes Internasjonale Miljøorganisasjon (KIMO) and the World Maritime University (WMU). Local initiatives are critical to the fulfillment of the UN SDGs and Malmö is one of the cities at the forefront, demonstrating how working towards sustainability generates local development and benefits society.

President Doumbia-Henry’s remarks focused on Building Global Capacity for Ocean Governance in Malmö. She stated, “Successful management of the ocean requires an adequate understanding of the activities taking place there as well as the context in which they are taking place. As has been pointed out in several scientific reports, much is known about the ocean, but in very few places do we have the detailed knowledge desirable for the effective future management of human use of the ocean.” She congratulated the City of Malmö on the strategies it was pursuing with respect to the local implementation of SDG 14, including with the official opening of the Sea-U Marine Center, making the City a shining example of what countries around the world can do.

The President emphasized the importance of scientific research, training and education in ocean matters in order to build a world-wide capacity that can tackle the challenges of ocean management today as well as in the future. In that regard, she highlighted the WMU-Sasakawa Global Oceans Institute that will be located at WMU in Malmö and officially inaugurated in May 2018 in conjunction with an Ocean Conference.

About Life Below Water 2017

In June 2017, Sweden and Fiji co-chaired a high-level United Nations Conference to support the implementation of Sustainable Development Goal 14: Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development. The Ocean Conference took place in New York on 5–9 June 2017, coinciding with World Oceans Day. To follow-up on the Ocean Conference, the City of Malmö organized Life Below Water 2017.

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