Code Blue: Digital Solutions for a Changing Ocean

Despite the ocean's vital role in sustaining life and regulating the climate, SDG14 (Life Below Water) remains one of the least funded goals, receiving just 1% of ODA. As a frontline of climate change, the ocean is both at risk and central to solutions. At “Our Ocean, Our Action” in Busan, “ocean digital” emerged as a key agenda—highlighting how technologies can help address governance gaps and support sustainability, especially for Small Island Developing States (SIDS) with vast yet under-resourced marine areas.

Achieving a resilient and digitally enabled ocean future requires collaboration across all sectors. For instance, governments play a leading role by providing flexible and enabling environments for marine innovation, while upholding their policy commitments and advancing SDG 14. They can also drive top-down public-private partnerships to support the development and deployment of marine technologies. On the other hand, private sectors are often the most agile and responsive to challenges—bringing innovation, investment, and scalable digital solutions, especially critical for SIDS whose vast marine territories are often under-resourced.

ODA agencies, meanwhile, serve as key enablers by integrating global and local resources. They help ensure that technological solutions are not only effective but also culturally appropriate and accessible to coastal communities. Other key actors, NGOs and think tanks, have continued to provide essential support through research, advocacy, and public engagement. With SDG14 facing the largest resource gap globally, their role in raising awareness and voicing the needs of underrepresented regions—especially SIDS—is more important than ever. Last but not the least, the youth generation is vital to the future of ocean sustainability. Their ideas, energy, and digital fluency are expected to drive both innovation and community outreach. Engaging young people in marine issues and empowering them to co-create solutions is key to long-term impact.

This side event is a call to collective action. By bringing together the above partners from across sectors, this event will explore how digital innovation can address the urgent challenge, and more significantly, how can it be more inclusively developed and applied. At the end, it is only through cross-sector collaboration, inclusive participation, and co-created solutions that we can scale up digital ocean tools to build a more resilient ocean.