Thank you all for being here today as we celebrate the 5-year anniversary of the Ocean Risk and Resilience Action Alliance (ORRAA). 

As one of the founding members of ORRAA, we at UNDP remember fondly when the Alliance was launched at the United Nations Secretary General’s Climate Action Summit in 2019. We are delighted at the progress that ORRAA has made in developing innovative financial and insurance instruments that incentivise investments into coastal and ocean Nature-based Solutions (NbS).

Ocean holds about 97% of the world’s water and supports 90% of the planet’s biosphere. It plays a crucial role in regulating global climate patterns, producing half of our oxygen and storing vast amounts of solar energy. In addition to being the driving force behind life on our planet, the ocean economy is estimated to be worth $2.3 trillion annually which is about the size of the German economy, the world’s 5th largest. Business related to the use of the oceans supports the livelihoods of approximately 3 billion people.  Oceans, though often still overlooked, are fundamental to the lifeblood of our planet. 

However, oceans are highly vulnerable to rising risks including climate change, pollution and overfishing. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) estimates that climate-induced declines in ocean health will cost the annual global economy $428 billion by 2050 and almost $2 trillion by 2100. UNDP estimates the annual cost of ocean mismanagement at nearly US$1 trillion. Let us be clear - the degradation of the ocean threatens the environment, economy, and life as we know it. 

Current financial systems undervalue the critical role that oceans, and nature more broadly, play in supporting the global economy, livelihoods and life on our planet. This creates a negative feedback loop of worsening climate impacts and environmental degradation which threatens the stability of these same financial systems. 

This is particularly clear if we look at insurance markets. We know that insurance can play a crucial role in enabling nature-based climate solutions and de-risking sustainable investments, but at the same time, insurance markets, and the investments they enable, risk collapse in the wake of rising climate risks. 

For example, climate change is intensifying the impact of tropical cycles – or hurricanes – on coastal communities. In the decade through 2022, hurricanes resulted in USD 609bn of economic losses. In response to these losses, insurance premiums for climate resilience and natural catastrophe protection are set to increase by 50% by 2030.  And in some part of the world, rising climate risks are pushing us to the edge of uninsurability, which is a death knell for investment and economic growth. And with without effective risk management and transfer, we will not deliver on the objectives of the Paris Agreement, the Global Biodiversity Framework or the Sustainable Development Goals

We can and must do better. We must develop a sustainable and resilient financial system that supports a sustainable and regenerative ocean and to do this we need to re-think the way we do business. Bringing in innovative finance such as through blue bonds is one such area to focus. 

UNDP supported the first ever blue bond sovereign issuances in the world, in Indonesia (150 M USD) and Fiji (20 M USD) in 2023. The use of proceeds includes coastal protection, sustainable management of fisheries and aquaculture, marine biodiversity conservation, and mangrove rehabilitation. Thematic debt instruments have great potential to drive financing towards blue economies, which is why we are providing technical assistance to sovereigns and corporates issuers and need to scale this up further.

UNDP has been a proud partner of the Alliance, and its commitment to develop innovative financial and insurance solutions that build coastal and ocean resilience, from the very beginning. And it is why we value our ongoing partnership with ORRAA, which is has continued to grow over the years.

I am pleased to share with you today that UNDP and ORRAA are strengthening our partnership at an institutional level to focus on getting the right governance systems in place so that we can create the enabling conditions to drive nature-positive investments that support coastal resilience and climate adaptation at scale. Our support of pilot projects has been successful, but we must now shift from starting pilots to accelerating and scaling projects and this can only be done if the right governance mechanisms are in place. 

UNDP and ORRAA are also expanding our programmatic partnerships. Together we are building ocean and coastal resilience through the development insurance solutions that protect nature, biodiversity, and livelihoods through our Insurance and Risk Finance Facility and our oceans team. For example, in Indonesia, we are collaborating with Ministry of Marine Fisheries to develop insurance products that protect coral reefs while supporting community resilience and we are working to scale this initiative across Southeast Asia, including building a community of practice focused on insurance to protect nature-based solutions.

By rethinking the relationship between finance, insurance, and environmental protection, UNDP and ORRAA aim to secure a regenerative and sustainable ocean, for generations to come, utilizing our growing awareness of nature’s economic value and the intergenerational concern for its loss. 

Together, we are building a world where a regenerative and sustainable ocean is not just an ideal, but a viable investment opportunity and where investing in the resilience of coastal communities in the Global South is considered good business. 

But as we take this moment to reflect on what has been achieved over the past five years and the momentum we have created; we also must also look to the future. From here in New York, to Cali, to Baku, to Monaco and the Blue Economy and Finance Forum and to Nice for the third UN Ocean Conference in 2025, the following 12 months are crucial milestone moments to organise and galvanise our efforts to drive investment into a regenerative and sustainable blue economy. 

Together, with ORRAA, and its now 100 members, we know that can deliver on the Alliance’s mission- but let’s challenge ourselves to exceed it. To deploy more than $500m of investment, through finance and insurance products, into coastal and ocean resilience in the Global South by 2030, to build the resilience of over 250 million climate vulnerable coastal people, and to kickstart a capital market for the ocean. 

Thanks for the last five years. We believe the best is yet to come and we look forward to seeing what we accomplish together in the next five years and beyond.