The United Nations Global Compact has partnered with the London, U.K.-headquartered Lloyd’s Register Foundation to establish Ocean Centers throughout the global south, which will address workforce safety challenges in ocean industries.
In their announcement, the two organizations note that while maritime labor is often key to economic security, ocean industries remain some of the world's most dangerous.
"Changing global workforce patterns, climate change, the energy transition, and technological innovation continue to bring new challenges and opportunities in growing ocean economies," U.N. Global Compact Ocean Lead Erik Giercksky said in a statement. "Collective, local action to drive safe and sustainable solutions is key to protecting those most affected as we work towards a people and nature positive future".
The first ocean centers will be opened in Brazil, Ghana, Kenya, India, Bangladesh, Indonesia, and the Philippines,
The centers will draw on the expertise of both organizations as well as that of local leadership and stakeholder networks to develop policy recommendations to protect fishers, shippers, aquaculture producers, and others working in maritime sectors.
"This initiative reflects the foundation's commitment to being led by local voices,” Lloyd's Register Foundation Chief Executive Ruth Boumphrey said in a statement. “Whilst keeping people safe is a universal ambition, every country has its own unique ambitions to grow their maritime economies, bringing with it safety challenges and opportunities which can only be properly understood by local stakeholders. By sharing local perspectives across the centers, we can all learn from each other."
The project will address challenges specific to particular economies that have often fallen outside the purview of other aid projects and those that are more universal to the global sector.
“From tackling heat stress among maritime workers to addressing infrastructure risk and gaps in safety governance, [the Ocean Centers] will surface practical solutions and elevate them through policy dialogues and regulatory pathways,” the U.N. Global Compact said in a release about the partnership.
The New York, New York, U.S.A.-based U.N. Global Compact, a corporate sustainability initiative with over 20,000 participating companies, works to accelerate and scale the work of businesses which support the U.N.’s sustainable development goals.
Lloyd’s Register Foundation is an independent global safety charity that operates numerous programs related to maritime and other offshore economies and has often campaigned on the issue of maritime workforce safety. The Foundation owns Lloyd’s Register, a provider of classification and compliance services for offshore industries that often acts as an independent assessor of fisheries.
The organizations will officially launch the partnership at the upcoming United Nations Ocean Conference on 10 June in Nice, France.
