Progress Report
The Our Ocean Conference (OOC) was established in 2014 by the United States, bringing together governments, intergovernmental organizations, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), the private sector, philanthropies, civil society, and other stakeholders to drive action for a sustainable ocean via voluntary commitments. These voluntary commitments include financial pledges; policy or partnership announcements; research and monitoring initiatives; capacity-building programs; and other specific, measurable actions across all levels of governance. Alongside and in support of other events that mobilize voluntary commitments, including the United Nations Ocean Conference (UNOC), the OOC has become a key forum to coordinate global ocean action and priorities and facilitate cross-sector dialogue.
This is the first comprehensive analysis of global progress toward implementation of OOC voluntary commitments announced between 2014 and 2024.
- 1To what extent have OOC commitments to sustainable ocean action been implemented and resources mobilized?
- 2What are the spatial and temporal distributions of OOC commitments and commitment makers?
- 3What are the trends, successes, and gaps in voluntary OOC commitment implementation?
Core Objectives of the Our Ocean Conference
Past Conferences
Addressing ocean challenges through voluntary commitments
The health of the ocean is central to life on our planet and presents a range of solutions to meet global environmental challenges. Implementing inclusive, sustainable ocean management and conservation is essential to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), particularly SDG 14 (Life Below Water).
$ Trillion
Contributed to the Global Economy in 2020
Billion
People Are Provided with Food
%
Of necessary greenhouse gas emission reductions by 2050 can be achieved through ocean-based climate solutions
The Challenges Facing Our Ocean Have Never Been Greater
In spite of its importance, the ocean is subject to accelerating environmental and human pressures.
Overfishing, ecosystem degradation, ocean warming and acidification, pollution, and other stressors are causing widespread biodiversity loss and reducing the productivity and functioning of ocean systems (Rogers et al. 2023; UNESCO-IOC et al. 2024). These trends place nature, food security, and human health at risk (Fleming et al. 2024).
Addressing ocean challenges is complex but recently coordinated targets and action show progress is possible.
The Global Biodiversity Framework 30×30 target (to protect 30 percent of the global ocean area by 2030), the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Ocean and Climate Change Dialogue, and the Agreement under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea on the Conservation and Sustainable Use of Marine Biological Diversity of Areas beyond National Jurisdiction (BBNJ Agreement) are recent multilateral frameworks that will steer future global ocean conservation and ambition.
Alongside negotiated outcomes, there has been a growing use of non-legally binding “soft law” tools by both governmental and nongovernmental actors to address ocean and environmental challenges, including voluntary commitments.
Voluntary commitments are an important tool for reacting to environmental challenges. They benefit from a lower barrier to entry than negotiated legal instruments and enable more rapid and flexible implementation (Brown Weiss 2014).
Voluntary commitments are made annually by governments and nongovernmental actors and include local, national, and international actions.
Financial
Pledges
Pledges
Policy & Partnership Announcements
Research & Monitoring Initiatives
Capacity Building Programs
Marine Protection, Conservation, and Restoration
The OOC Commitment Tracker
Over 2,600 commitments are registered using the OOC online platform, this tracks implementation by commitment-makers, who are requested to provide annual progress updates. OOC host governments also publish conference outcome reports, which list the roster of new commitments generated at each OOC. Tracking commitments remains challenging due to the large number of participating organizations and governments, limited self-reporting, and the broad scope of actions.
Voluntary commitment monitoring must strike a balance between seeking adequate information for concrete tracking and minimizing reporting burdens that may disincentivize participants from making or updating commitments. At scale, this often necessitates tracking intermediate outcomes (the extent to which commitments have been implemented), rather than assessing the real-world impact of individual commitments on target ecosystems and communities.
Commitment Progress in Recent Studies
Several studies have assessed different aspects of OOC commitment implementation. Each of these assessments focused on a single OOC action area and therefore did not provide a full characterization of the OOC’s role in driving global ocean ambition or broader, disaggregated analysis of all commitments.
MPA commitments have received the most robust analysis, assessing the outsize contribution of the OOC to global marine conservation and the 30x30 target (Grorud-Colvert et al. 2019; Sullivan-Stack et al. 2024). An estimated 40 percent of implemented MPAs were announced at OOCs, equivalent to over 8.5 million square kilometers, or 2.3 percent of global ocean area (Figure 2) (Sullivan-Stack et al. 2025).
Huse et al. (2021) assessed OOC sustainable fishery implementation, highlighting contributions toward ratification of the Agreement on Port State Measures and action to address illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing.
Other analyses have focused on the blue economy and private sector, including the role of the private sector in announcing action at multilateral forums and the high number of plastic-producing companies (67 percent) engaged in voluntary commitment processes (Voyer et al. 2021; Diana et al. 2022). Voluntary commitments have also been used to generate global estimates of ocean expenditure (Johansen and Vestvik 2020) and project future marine conservation priorities (Nocito et al. 2020).
Figure 2
Map of independently verified MPA and area-based management Our Ocean Conference commitments
Source: Sullivan-Stack et al. 2025.
