Ocean Governance

Activity leader: VASAB Secretariat

Partners: Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management (Netherlands), Maritime Institute of Maritime University in Gdynia (Poland), HELCOM, Nordregio, University of Gothenburg / Swedish Institute for the Marine Environment, Swedish Agency for Marine and Water Management.

This activity aims to address a number of topics, that need closer attention from a governance perspective in the North Sea and Baltic Sea regions. This includes the governance system across sea-basins, but also concrete urgent issues MSP needs to tackle, such as climate change and an ecosystem-based approach. In the Baltic Sea Region (BSR) there are well established forums for informal and formal cross-border collaboration on MSP at ministerial and expert level, hosted by VASAB and HELCOM. In the Greater North Sea Basin this kind of collaboration is just evolving. The cross-sea basin learning process started in eMSP NBSR project, using a community of practice-based approach, will continue in spirit here in the NESBp.

Work will be built on existing institutional developments, support this on-going process, and at the same time will work on concrete policy issues that have arisen and are urgent to address in both sea basins, where the governance system needs further development. This regards in the BSR to develop the governance system across the land-sea interface and multiple levels of governance (as not only national authorities have jurisdiction in territorial waters and marine uses and ecosystem processes do not follow these boundaries) and in the Greater North Sea Basin to build up a collaboration across different sectors at ministerial but also at expert level.

• The overall objective of this activity is to enhance (multi-level) governance in the Greater North Sea and Baltic Sea regions. This will provide both the processes (in the form of meetings and workshops) and the necessary analyses to progress the topics. The organizations hosting these processes are the task leaders, supported by scientists, and in collaboration with marine experts and decision makers from authorities and other interested parts from both sea basins. The concrete aims include to enable the exchange of knowledge and sharing of know-how on multi-level governance for MSP between both sea basins;
• Support the development of an integrated and ecosystem-based governance in the Greater North Sea Basin;
• Review current mechanisms for cooperation and collaboration on MSP related governance in the BSR/GNSR and explore their further development.

The technical work in other project activities forms the input of this dialogue.