Ocean Action Commitments Signal Strong Ambition, but Implementation Remains Urgent

July 10, 2026 — Efforts to safeguard the ocean for future generations are multilayered and complex. The global community has set ambitious goals like the 30x30 target, which aims to protect 30% of the global ocean by 2030. While high-level political commitments are an important expression of aligned global ambition, with less than half a decade remaining, the focus now is on implementation: mobilizing practical policies, tangible projects and sustained finance.

Since 2014, the Our Ocean Conference has been an important mechanism for mobilizing governments, intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations, philanthropy, local communities and the private sector to take action across six core areas critical to achieving a healthy ocean: the ocean-climate nexus, sustainable fisheries, the sustainable blue economy, marine pollution, marine protected areas and maritime security. 

However, unlike other global meetings that focus on negotiated outcomes, the Our Ocean Conference invites voluntary commitments that serve as critical stepping-stones to achieving

Over the past 12 years, the conference has generated more than 3,000 commitments valued at over $175 billion in pledged finance. But now, the more critical question is not whether governments and civil society can make ambitious commitments, but how they can deliver them.

WRI, in its capacity as conference secretariat, has taken a deep dive into Our Ocean Conference commitments to better understand and encourage accountable, transparent delivery of these commitments. At this year’s 11th Our Ocean Conference, hosted in Mombasa, Kenya in June, WRI followed up on its 2025 working paper, Assessing 10 Years of International Commitments to Sustainable Ocean Action: A Global Stocktake of the Our Ocean Conference, with two new assessments of progress toward implementing Our Ocean Conference commitments.

The first report assesses global commitment delivery from 2025 to 2026, benchmarking progress delivered since the 10th Our Ocean Conference in Busan, South Korea, in 2025. The analysis, based on self-reported progress updates from global commitment-makers, indicates that since April 2025, 285 new commitments were made, representing $9.1 billion in pledged investments. During the same period, 284 existing commitments — delivering an additional $2.7 billion — were completed or reported progress through the Our Ocean Conference mechanism.

In a time of increasingly constrained funding, geopolitical instability and diverse challenges demanding the attention of governments, the Our Ocean Conference continues to serve as a mechanism for governments, civil society and funders to advance ocean action. 

However, while countries and organizations are making moderate but measurable progress toward their commitments, greater urgency is needed to achieve meaningful, on-the-ground impact for the ocean and ocean-reliant communities. To date:

• 41% of all Our Ocean Conference commitments have been completed.
• 40% are in progress.
• 18% are not yet started.

These proportions closely reflect the status of commitments in 2025, indicating no notable shift toward increased aggregate delivery of commitments. It is important to account for realistic time needed to fully and effectively implement complex and multi-year commitments. At the same time, the ambition and urgency of implementation must ramp up if global targets are to be met by 2030.

Along with greater global ambition, it is critical that parts of the world that have been historically underrepresented in the Our Ocean Conference are engaged in the process. The ocean is a global system, with global challenges — and solving them will require solutions mobilized from all corners of the world. In alignment with this regional focus, WRI also brought together local research partners to assess the landscape of voluntary commitments made by and in Africa through self-reported data, surveys and interviews with organizations around the world.

The 11th Our Ocean Conference marked the first time it was held in Africa, placing a spotlight on the technical expertise, political leadership and innovative ocean solutions occurring across the continent. The Kenyan government brought together more than 5,000 participants and significantly expanded participation from African governments, representing one-third of attending government delegations and over African civil society organizations, whose perspectives are critical to the design and implementation of effective ocean solutions.

WRI’s reporting found that between 2014 and 2025, Africa made a notable commitment to ocean ambition, mobilizing 364 commitments across Africa and a collective financial pledge of $14.3 billion, $5.7 billion of which has been fully delivered. This represents 12% of global Our Ocean Conference commitments and 8% of total pledged finance.

However, this year’s conference yielded an even more striking result: more than 100 of the new commitments announced in Mombasa will be implemented in Africa or by African governments and organizations, increasing the total number of Africa-based or Africa-led commitments by 25% in just a single year. Kenya, as host, delivered 42 new commitments valued at $1 billion.

These impressive regional outcomes underscore the importance of diversifying regional representation and increasing access to global platforms like the Our Ocean Conference. By facilitating new partnerships, mobilizing additional resources and placing regional leaders at the center of the conversation, mechanisms like the Our Ocean Conference have the potential to significantly boost ongoing ocean action across the host region.

Lastly, WRI’s commitment analysis is expanding to better understand the enabling conditions and barriers that commitment-makers encounter that impact their success. This year’s report provides a solid foundation to enable effective, meaningful and timely implementation of future commitments made by and in Africa. Africa-based commitments that were successfully implemented shared key conditions including:

• A participatory, inclusive approach that brings local communities and stakeholders into the process as commitments are implemented.
• Efforts to build local expertise and capacity and utilize local knowledge, creating an environment for communities that live, work and best understand these ecosystems to sustain action over the long term.

On the other end of the spectrum, commitment-makers’ main barrier to effective implementation was access to sustained, secure finance. Many commitments undertaken by African organizations rely on short-term, project-based finance which can result in a patchwork of impacts on the ground, rather than systemic, meaningful change for ocean ecosystems and coastal communities.

The continued progress of Our Ocean Conference tells us that investing in the ocean continues to be a policy priority for governments, the private sector and civil society organizations because commitments to investments in a healthy ocean are also an investment in prosperity, resilience and security for future generations. However, as the conference enters its second decade and the 30x30 deadline looms closer, increasing urgency is needed from all corners of the world — not just through lofty new commitments, but in delivering the practical steps and finance needed to turn them from ambition to reality. Africa — home to the world’s youngest population, fastest-growing blue economy and diverse, abundant marine resources — has shown in hosting this year’s conference that it is poised to lead.