The United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), through its Subregional Office for West Africa, and the Government of Côte d’Ivoire, through the Ministry of Animal and Fisheries Resources, are organizing a National Stakeholders’ Consultation on the Assessment and Development of the Blue Economy in Côte d’Ivoire. The consultation will be held in Abidjan on 16 and 17 September 2026.

This initiative is part of the technical support provided by ECA to the Government of Côte d’Ivoire to strengthen national capacity for policy formulation and implementation with a view to accelerating sustainable development. In this context, ECA plans to deploy the Blue Economy Valuation Toolkit (BEVTK), developed in 2020 to provide a structured framework for identifying and quantifying the economic, social, and environmental contributions of blue economy sectors and resources, and for assessing the blue economy’s overall contribution to national development.

This support will help build the national capacities required for the autonomous use and application of the Blue Economy Valuation Toolkit (BEVTK) in Côte d’Ivoire.

The overall objective of the consultation is to mobilize key national stakeholders, foster their ownership of the process, and promote their active participation in  co-developingthe assessment tools and action plan that will guide the implementation of the initiative’s next phases.

More specifically, the consultation aims to:

Present the Blue Economy Valuation Toolkit (BEVTK) and familiarize national stakeholders with its methodology, as well as the lessons learned from its application in other African countries;

Identify and validate available data sources relating to the economic, social, and environmental dimensions of the blue economy in Côte d’Ivoire;

Identify potential data gaps and, where necessary, define proxy indicators or variables to address them;

Map the relevant institutional stakeholders and identify focal points responsible for data collection and management in preparation for the subsequent phases of the assessment.

This consultation will constitute a critical step toward establishing a robust knowledge base on Côte d’Ivoire’s blue economy, strengthening interinstitutional coordination, and laying the foundations for an effective financing and monitoring mechanism to support the sustainable development of this strategic sector.