Capacity development for sustainable ocean governance. Lessons learned from academia, policy and practice

What are the main challenges of capacity development in the marine context, and what are possible approaches to meet them?
During the first UN Ocean Conference, a consortium of different collaborating institutions representing the scientific community, international development cooperation and civil society invited participants to exchange their experiences on enhancing capacities for the sustainable management and the use of the ocean and its resources.
During the side event “Capacity development for sustainable ocean governance: Lessons learned from academia, policy and practice”, participants discussed the relevance of capacity development for achieving the Sustainable Development Goal 14 (SDG14 – Life below water). Being practitioners in the field of capacity development themselves, participants contributed valuable insights according to their own experiences. This document summarizes the main points of the discussion: it briefly introduces the different concepts of capacity development and elaborates the main challenges and possible approaches according to the contributions made during the side event. In a last step, the document summarizes the conclusions drawn from the participants’ exchange of experiences.