News Vol. 15 | August 2026

A note from GOAP’s Co-Chairs

Dear GOAP friends and colleagues,

We are now halfway through 2026 - a pivotal year for sustainable ocean development - and it has been a year of real progress for the GOAP community.

June brought the 11th Our Ocean Conference (OOC11) to Mombasa, Kenya — the first time the conference has been hosted on the African continent, and a fitting stage for the region’s growing leadership in ocean accounting. Ghana signed the Pledge to Advance Ocean Accounts by 2030, joining the growing coalition of countries and organisations committed to building the evidence base for sustainable ocean management. Also during OOC11 events, Ghana, Kenya, Madagascar and Mozambique shared how their own ocean accounts are moving from pilot to permanent government infrastructure, and Latin American and Caribbean governments presented a coordinated package of new commitments, with Ocean Accounts recognised as the evidence base underpinning them.

This June, we celebrated two years since the founding of the Social Accounts Working Group, which has now grown to over 200 members. What started as an idea has become genuine infrastructure: a replicable methodology tested in eight countries, 880 social indicators identified within existing national statistical systems and pilot social accounts completed in Belize, Costa Rica, the Maldives and Mozambique. The Working Group has set its priorities for the next 18 months - we encourage you to find out more and welcome you to join the Social Accounts Working Group here.

GOAP partners continue to gather evidence and grow capacity in-country. In Fiji and Sri Lanka, waste audits and training are laying the foundation for national plastics data systems, and our Regional Dialogue series continues to explore how disaster risk and coastal protection can be counted alongside carbon.

Looking ahead, the second half of the year turns to two major moments for global environmental governance: the UN Biodiversity Conference (COP17) in October and the UN Climate Change Conference (COP31) in November. Both will shape how ocean, climate and biodiversity commitments are financed and implemented over the next decade. We will explore both in depth in our next volume.

For now, we invite you to explore this edition — new knowledge products, webinar recordings and the events ahead — and thank you, as always, for the work you are doing to build the evidence base sustainable ocean governance depends on.

• Firdaus Agung, Directorate General of Ocean Management, Ministry of Marine Affairs and Fisheries, Government of Indonesia  
• César Viteri Mejia, Senior Economist, Charles Darwin Foundation

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