The Global Ocean Accounts Partnership (GOAP) is a global, multistakeholder partnership established to enable countries and other stakeholders to go Beyond GDP to measure and manage progress toward ocean sustainable development. Co-Chaired by the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific and Fisheries and Oceans Canada, GOAP brings together governments, international organisations, and research institutions to build a global community of practice for ocean accounting.
The GOAP Secretariat is currently hosted by the University of New South Wales and partnership activities are funded by the World Bank Blue Economy Program, the United Kingdom Blue Planet Fund, Australia’s Oceans Leadership Package, and the Australia-India Indo-Pacific Oceans Initiative Partnership.
What we do
Objectives
- Build a global community of practice for ocean accounting to ensure the diverse values of the ocean are recognised in all decision-making about social and economic development.
- Develop a globally recognised and standardised guidance for ocean accounting by 2023.
- Support at least 30 countries by 2030 to build complete sequences of national ocean accounts.
- Facilitate the global uptake of ocean accounts in decision-making, development planning, policies, laws, and other governance processes.
Actions
- GOAP is an Action Group of the High Level Panel for a Sustainable Ocean Economy(Ocean Panel). GOAP ensures its objectives accelerate, scale, and implement the Ocean Panel’s commitments, as well as Sustainable Development Goal 14 (life below water)and targets 15.9 (valuing nature in decision-making) and 17.19 (measurement of progress complementing GDP), and other relevant international agendas to measure and manage progress towards ocean sustainable development.
- GOAP assists in sourcing financial or in-kind support for the development and implementation of ocean accounting initiatives.
- GOAP catalyses and connects ocean accounts experts to establish a global Expert Panel, Technical Working Groups, and facilitate the creation of ocean accounting knowledge products to advance the development and global uptake of ocean accounting.
- Provides a communication and collaboration platform for the global community of practice to engage in mutual capacity building and share knowledge on ocean accounting.
Support Available from GOAP
- In-kind advisory support and help to secure funding for ocean accounting pilot activities.
- Collaboration on the development and implementation of ocean accounting initiatives.
- Policy development support for ocean resources and the ocean economy.
- Opportunities to provide methodological input for the Technical Guidance on Ocean Accounting and development of related international statistical standards.
- Introduction to experts and consultants to host workshops and capacity building events to bridge knowledge gaps and build technical expertise in-country.
- Collaboration on the development of demand-driven technical papers related to ocean accounting.
- Opportunities to share knowledge, challenges, and best practices on ocean accounting with global stakeholders
