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How AFD takes action worldwide to protect the oceans
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Having invested more than €4 billion in ocean-related projects since 2020, AFD works to preserve the oceans’ ecological health and reconcile their many uses by humankind.
The ocean, which is essential to the development, nutrition, employment, and economies of many countries, has been weakened by rising human pressures, such as unsustainable fishing and aquaculture, pollution caused by wastewater discharge and plastic waste, maritime traffic, and seabed mining activities.
The ocean also plays a key role in the planet’s climate system by absorbing a significant proportion of the CO2 present in the atmosphere. Furthermore, some marine and coastal ecosystems constitute naturally effective solutions for adaptation to climate change, but are unfortunately often already in a degraded state. This is why AFD and its partners are striving to reconcile ocean protection with its diverse uses by humanity. To achieve this, we implement differentiated approaches, adapted to local specificities, with a particular focus on the most vulnerable communities and systematically factoring in issues related to gender, climate, and biodiversity.
An overview of the diversity of our actions.