“Sustainable Blue Future in the Western Indian Ocean – Institutional Strengthening through Science, Capacity and Assimilation for a Sustainable Blue Future – SCALABLE” seeks to scale the impact of WIOMSA’s actions; particularly around building institutional capacity for marine science and assisting the Western Indian Ocean (WIO) region in strengthening a knowledge-based blue economy.
SCALABLE focuses on the theme of “Ocean Science and Policy for Sustainable Development,” which aims to make the best science and policy available in its broadest sense, including social and economic aspects, to assist societies in the WIO in restoring and protecting biodiversity, ensuring food security in the face of climate change, and ultimately leading to a resilient, sustainable, productive and inclusive blue economy. It seeks to strengthen the science-policy interface and increase the impact of the WIOMSA’s Marine Science for Management (MASMA) program.
SCALABLE calls for inclusion of diverse perspectives, prioritizing blue economy issues, and co-creating solutions to WIO’s most pressing marine and coastal management issues.
The Western Indian Ocean Science to Policy Platform (SPP) is “a multi-stakeholder platform comprising representatives of formal and informal knowledge-generating institutions, practitioners, policymakers, communities and the private sector within the WIO region. It serves as an intermediary body to bridge the gaps between science and policy.
The Science to Policy Platform is intended to support the efforts of the Contracting Parties of the Nairobi Convention to integrate relevant scientific evidence and findings into their efforts to protect, manage and develop their coastal and marine environment sustainably.
It is also expected to act as an intermediary between science and society and facilitate and promote a better understanding of ongoing and emerging regional environmental challenges and opportunities and the strategies needed to address them. WIOMSA is an integral member of the science to policy platform; facilitating the science pillar of the SPP.
