On June 7 and 8, Costa Rica hosted the Immersed in Change summit, a key step in mobilizing the international community in favor of ocean protection, in preparation for the United Nations Ocean Conference (Unoc) in Nice in June 2025. On this occasion, Emmanuel Baudran, Deputy Executive Director of Sustainable Development Solutions at AFD, discusses the challenges of the Group’s participation in this event and reaffirms its commitment to the oceans.
Why this ocean summit in Costa Rica?
Emmanuel Baudran: The preservation of the ocean, its ecosystems and its resources, is a major development subject: we are talking about the food security of around a billion inhabitants, millions of jobs, but also of course of marine biodiversity and balance of the climate system. International mobilization for the preservation of the oceans has been increasingly important since 2022, and France plays a major role in this action agenda: it will co-organize with Costa Rica a major United Nations conference on the oceans ( Unoc) which will take place in Nice in June 2025.
AFD was a partner of the Immersed in Change summit organized in Costa Rica on June 7 and 8, 2024, an important step in mobilizing the international community. This summit brought together the diversity of stakeholders involved in the preservation and development of marine and coastal ecosystems: scientists, because we need to better understand marine environments and the societies that live from them; civil society actors and representatives of local communities, because coastal and marine ecosystems are first and foremost theirs; governments, because we need strong public policies; and finally the financial institutions, public and private, of sustainable finance, because we must develop new blue finance tools to respond to the challenges!
Alongside Hervé Berville, Secretary of State for the Sea and Biodiversity, Éleonore Caroit, Member of Parliament for French Abroad and member of the AFD Board of Directors, Catherine Chabaud, European Member of Parliament, and Olivier Poivre d’Arvor, ambassador for the oceans and the poles, we listened to and met all the stakeholders and thought about ways to respond to the challenges of preserving and promoting the oceans.
This summit was also an opportunity to reaffirm the partnership between France and Costa Rica on environmental issues, as demonstrated even before the organization of Unoc by their joint leadership in the Coalition of High Ambition for Nature and peoples (HAC). This cooperation is manifested through concrete initiatives, such as mangrove protection projects supported by the French Fund for Global Environment (FFEM) and public policy loans from AFD to support the Costa Rican national decarbonization plan. Rica.
What is AFD doing for the oceans?
Currently, around 7% of the AFD portfolio, or around 850 million euros of annual investments, are dedicated to the oceans; and more than 60% of these investments have positive impacts on marine environments. These include the reduction of plastic waste in Indonesia, the conservation of mangroves in Senegal, the management of sargassum in the Caribbean, the management of waste from fishing fleets with the Association of Asian Nations South East (Asean), the promotion of Nature-Based Solutions (NBS) in the Pacific via the Kiwa initiative, or the integrated management of coastal zones in the Indian Ocean with the Ocean Commission Indian (COI). Expertise France is also recognized for its interventions in maritime safety, plastic debris management and support for small island territories. As for Proparco, it was at the origin of the group’s first blue credit line, in China in 2022.
In 2019, AFD distinguished itself by being one of the first development banks to develop a strategy dedicated to the oceans. For her, this summit was an opportunity to let people know that we can do better. To do this, we are deploying a dedicated blue action plan with clear objectives: to bring out “Ocean positive” projects involving an increased requirement for positive impacts for marine environments, to support public policies integrating the marine dimension of the Global Framework for biodiversity and a blue economy with a high level of sustainability, or even mobilizing blue finance tools (blue carbon credits, blue credit line, in particular).
Doing better also means strengthening our support offering in strategic sectors such as the fight against plastic pollution, the decarbonization of maritime transport, marine protected areas, support for coastal artisanal fishing and even the adaptation of cities. coastal.
This “Ocean positive” offer aligns with the Kunming Global Biodiversity Framework and the “Nature Positive” agenda, targeting in particular restoration and protection targets, it also aligns with Nature-Based Solutions and mobilization of financial resources. More generally, in terms of biodiversity, the AFD, which targeted one billion euros in biodiversity financing in 2025, achieved this objective by 2023. Around 30% of this biodiversity finance concerns marine environments.
What project or initiative represents this new approach?
In San José, we are very pleased to announce the launch of a new program deployed by AFD: the Blue Carbon Facility.
Blue carbon is the generic name given to carbon sequestered by marine ecosystems, including coastal ecosystems (mangroves, seagrass beds, coastal marshes). These three ecosystems are very productive – they store up to four times more carbon per unit area than terrestrial forests. An essential role, therefore, in terms of sequestration. But they also play a critical role in adaptation – protection of the coastline – and are reservoirs of biodiversity and food resources for coastal communities. However, they remain globally threatened due to various well-known pressures: urbanization, pollution, aquaculture, climate change.
This facility, endowed with 6 million euros, will make it possible to prepare lasting conditions for the preservation of marine ecosystems, via three types of complementary activities: knowledge, integration into public policies and experimentation with new financing mechanisms. And specific support will be deployed in Costa Rica! This summit was therefore also an opportunity to deepen cooperation with Costa Rica on a subject that can play a role as a strategic lever on climate and biodiversity trajectories.
