Blue Economies for Coastal Resilience (BEFCR)

Launched at the Blue Economy and Finance Forum (BEFF) Monaco, a Special Event preceding the Third United Nations Ocean Conference (UNOC3) 2025, the Blue Economies for Coastal Resilience programme is the first comprehensive effort to assess how climate change is reshaping key blue economy sectors in the MENA region, and to identify the opportunities these sectors hold to strengthen coastal infrastructure, ecosystems, and communities.

Phase 1 of the programme is led in strategic partnership between the MENA Oceans Initiative by Goumbook and Qatar Foundation’s Earthna.

Programme Highlights:

Phase 1

Oct 2025 - Mar 2026

Landscape Analysis & Strategic Review:

Blue Economies for Coastal Resilience Outlook Report.
Conduct a landscape analysis and outlook review to lay the groundwork for a regenerative blue economy vision, aligning economic growth with ecological regeneration and socio-economic resilience.

Phase 2

June 2026

MENA Coastal Cities Blueprint:

Blue Economy Framework.
Translate insights into actionable guidelines to shape a coherent, investable roadmap for coastal cities across the region, enabling MENA countries to unlock the full potential of their marine and coastal resources.

Key outcomes; Phase 1

The report aims to create a baseline mapping for 6 key sectors, leading to:

A clear conceptual foundation distinguishing regenerative blue economy principles from traditional blue economy approaches.
A sectoral analysis of key maritime and coastal sectors across MENA—including fisheries, marine tourism, offshore renewable energy, shipping, desalination, and coastal development—with a focus on opportunities for regenerative transformation.
An assessment of barriers to implementation, including institutional, financial, and social challenges.
A strategic roadmap featuring tangible action plans, policy recommendations, capacity-building needs, and monitoring frameworks.
Case studies from both within the MENA region and globally, showcasing successful initiatives and transferable lessons.

Key sectors:

Key stakeholders and contributors

The study and blueprint development emphasise gathering insights and inputs from diverse stakeholder groups, and across the sectoral value chains to map ecosystem and industry dependencies comprehensively. We propose to engage the following groups and stakeholders as Programme Committee Members, authors, contributors and potentially feature their case studies.

Interested to learn more?

Insights & News