- Ocean Governance & Blue Economy
- #RoadtoLuanda25
Africa-Europe, seizing the potential of the oceans together
- Pascal Lamy & Nancy Karigithu
From Marseille to Mombasa, from Dakar to Lisbon, the ocean is no longer a frontier. It is the blue thread of our shared future, a vital space where sovereignty, stability, and sustainability intertwine. It nourishes, connects, regulates, transports, and can become the foundation of a new chapter in the Africa–Europe partnership.
As both continents prepare to meet in Luanda later this month for the 7ᵗʰ AU–EU Summit, the global context calls for a shift in scale. Climate crisis, energy insecurity, and pressure on resources — in the face of these interdependent challenges, the blue economy stands out as a strategic lever to relaunch cooperation on concrete, sustainable, and mutually beneficial foundations.
This vision was reaffirmed at the 3ʳᵈ Blue Africa Summit, held in Tangier in October 2025, where African leaders, European partners, and multilateral actors recognized the urgency of joining forces to build a regenerative blue economy.
From Tangier emerged a major idea: an Africa–Mediterranean–Europe network of marine protected areas, aligned with the Kunming-Montreal Agreement setting the goal of protecting 30 % of marine zones by 2030, and the proposal to establish an Africa–Europe Hub for Ocean Innovation and Finance to catalyze joint blue innovation for shared competitiveness and green industrialization, and accelerate related sustainable investment.
These priorities echo the findings of the Africa-Europe Foundation’s State of Africa-Europe Report 2025, which identifies the blue economy as a key pillar for renewing the partnership between the two continents. The report calls for stronger cooperation on ocean governance, blue finance, and sustainable industrialization, turning the ocean into a shared engine of prosperity and resilience.
The ocean, a strategic horizon for the Africa–Europe partnership
The blue economy is no longer a distant prospect - it is already a reality, contributing nearly €900 billion to Europe’s GDP and $300 billion to Africa’s. But this growth calls for coherence and capacity sharing. It is time to align the African Blue Economy Strategy with the African Continental Free Trade Area, Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme, and the European Ocean Pact to create an integrated framework for action.
The goal : make the ocean a space for cooperation rather than competition, linking investment to food security, resource management, energy transition, and local employment. For the ocean connects, and in that interconnection lies the strength of the Africa–Europe partnership.
Blue finance, a driver of green industrialization
No strategy can materialize without strong financial levers. For the blue economy to deliver on its promise, blue finance must become a cornerstone of the partnership. The proposed Africa–Europe Hub for Ocean Innovation and Finance will mobilize public and private capital around high-impact projects: renewable marine energy, sustainable ports, responsible fisheries, clean maritime transport, and coastal restoration. It would draw lessons from recent initiatives - from blue bonds to debt for nature swaps - and call for Development Finance Institutions and Export Credit Agencies to renew focus on blue economy sectors.
Its ambition goes beyond financing: to build a trusted ecosystem connecting institutions, investors, researchers, and coastal communities around a shared vision, to produce sustainably, invest wisely, and share fairly. Properly designed, blue finance is not a niche; it is the foundation of green industrialization, generating jobs, local value, and resilience, while bridging Europe’s green transition and Africa’s sustainable transformation.
Toward an Africa–Europe Ocean Pact
On the eve of the 7ᵗʰ AU-EU Summit, Africa and Europe have a historic opportunity to lay the groundwork for an African-Europe Ocean Pact, concrete, inclusive, and measurable. It would strengthen maritime governance, pool capacities, mobilize sustainable finance, and consolidate marine protected areas to reach 30% coverage by 2030. Such an initiative would make Africa and Europe pioneers of transcontinental ocean governance, serving regenerative growth and a results-based multilateralism.
The ocean belongs to no one yet concerns everyone. By making maritime governance and blue finance the pillars of a renewed partnership, Africa and Europe can embody cooperation built on responsibility, sustainability, and trust. If the future is blue, it will not be a metaphor, but the mark of a partnership that acts, delivers, and transforms, together.
- This op-ed was first published on La Tribune.