On 13-14 December 2017 the 4th Potsdam Ocean Governance workshop was organized by the Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies (IASS) in Potsdam, Germany. The meeting was attended by Member States, UN agencies, NGOs and academia.

At the workshop, a lot of reference was made to the UN Ocean Conference held in June 2017 and its voluntary commitments and to follow up and review under HLPF. Some participants spoke about the integration of the 2030 Agenda and SDG14 into their work programmes and strategies.

Three working groups were established: Working Group 1 on “Unlocking the potential of SDG interactions”; Working Group 2 on “Achieving Ocean Sustainability through Voluntary Commitments” and Working Group 3 on “Building Regional Ocean Partnerships”.

As part of working group 2, DESA spoke about the follow-up work it is conducting, in close collaboration with the Special Envoy for the Ocean, Ambassador Peter Thomson, on the over 1,400 voluntary commitments made at the UN Ocean Conference. In this regard, DESA highlighted the creation of nine multi-stakeholder communities of ocean action to:

(1) further the implementation and performance of the Voluntary Commitments made at the Ocean Conference;
(2) catalyse and generate new and additional Voluntary Commitments; and
(3) increase opportunities for collaboration and networking amongst different actors in support of SDG 14 (see also: https://oceanconference.un.org/coa).

There will be summaries of each working group plus a contribution from each working group to a special issue of Marine Policy. More information can be found under: http://www.iass-potsdam.de/en/news/good-intentions-concrete-action-experts-analyse-progress-protecting-oceans