Partnership Opportunity Delegations as an Inclusive and Effective Means of Science-Policy-Society Interfacing

This presentation shares insights from the recent experience of the author as a US State Department Science Envoy for Ocean Sustainability participating in Partnership Opportunity Delegation (POD) visit to the small island developing state (SID) of Cabo Verde, Africa. PODs are highly curated, multi-day agendas of bilateral meetings, roundtables, and private networking events to explore areas for meaningful collaboration and partnerships to advance priorities in specific sectors and policy areas. They include a diverse range of ocean experts from industry, start-ups, academia, financial institutions, philanthropic organizations, non-profits, ecosystem developers, diasporans, and other government partners. The theme of the POD was Blue-Green Futures, held also under the auspices of the first Partnership for Atlantic Cooperation (a multilateral forum of 42 countries – Atlantic coastal N America, S America, Africa, Europe, Caribbean, putting the ocean at the center of US Atlantic diplomacy). We created SDG14-focused business-to-government, business-to-business, and scientific academic partnerships in marine and climate research, renewable energy, ports and shipping, aquaculture and seafood processing and packaging, eco-tourism, and information technology. In addition, we learned much about how the Cabo Verdean diaspora, especially in the northeastern US, is a critical and strategic pillar in the country’s conservation science and economic development. For example, 18% of the country’s GDP comes the diaspora in terms of remittances, purchases of goods and services, and direct investments, and will be a key driver in the growth of eco-tourism. Discussions with the Minister of the Sea, the Minister of Tourism, Minister of Finance, the Secretary of State for Digital Economy, and the Prime Minister himself were productive in further understanding the aspirations and activities of Cabo Verde in developing all aspects of their Blue Economy, on issues of biodiversity assessment and protection, their national strategies and action plans therein, and how this will be important for the economies across the entire Atlantic Cooperation. In sum, I argue that the example of a partnership opportunity delegation should proliferate all the more during the UN Ocean Decade as part of the vibrant science needed to inform, support, and accelerate ocean action.