In 2022, a political road map “our ocean, our future, our responsibility” was adopted at 2nd United Nations Ocean Conference in Lisbon in July 2022. Additionaly, the 4th UN Oceans Forum called for a global "Blue Deal" was made at the 4th UN Oceans Forum in Geneva in April 2022.
The ocean economy, and particularly the "blue foods" sector, was affected by the COVID-19 pandemic and is still being affected by the war in Ukraine.
The Trade and Environment Review 2023, “Building a sustainable ocean economy”, examines and analyzes several emerging topics, including the sustainable fisheries, aquaculture and seaweed sectors, as levers for a sustainable economic recovery; fisheries subsidies and non-tariff measures reform; the decarbonization of shipping and maritime supply chains; and the impact plastic pollution the food chain.
The report offers a bottum-up list of action and policy recommendations to forge a new relationship with the marine environment and build a more sustainable and resilient ocean economy beyond 2030.
Programme
Moderator
- H.E. Mrs. Usha Chandnee Dwarka-Canabady, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary, Permanent Representative, Permanent Mission of the Republic of Mauritius to the United Nations Office and other international organizations in Geneva
Keynote
- H.E. Mr. Francisco André, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs and Cooperation, Portugal
- H.E. Rt Hon Patricia Scotland KC, Secretary-General of the Commonwealth (by video)
Report presentation
- Ms. Chantal Line Carpentier, Head, Trade, Environment, Climate Change and Sustainable Development Branch (TED), DITC, UNCTAD
- Mr. David Vivas Eugui, Chief of Section, TED, DITC, UNCTAD
- Mr. Audun Lem, Deputy Director of the Fisheries and Aquaculture Division, FAO (by video)
Comments on the way forward
- H.E. Mr. Jérôme Bonnafont, Ambassador, Permanent Representative, Permanent Mission of France to the United Nations Office in Geneva and other international organizations in Geneva, and Co-convener to the 2025 United Nations Ocean Conference
- H.E. Mrs. Shara Duncan Villalobos, Ambassador, Deputy Permanent Representative and Chargé d’affaires a.i., Permanent Mission of the Republic of Costa Rica to the United Nations Office and other international organizations in Geneva, and Co-convener to the 2025 United Nations Ocean Conference
- Mr. Awni Behnam, Honorary President, International Ocean Institute
Usha Chandnee Dwarka-Canabady is Permanent Representative of the Republic of Mauritius to the United Nations and other International Organizations in Geneva.
Prior to this appointment, Ambassador Dwarka-Canabady was, since November 2015, Secretary for Foreign Affairs of Mauritius, after having been acting Secretary for Foreign Affairs between April 2013 and October 2015. She was also Head of the Multilateral Economic Directorate (January 2007 to March 2013) and Head of the Multilateral Political Department (May 2006-2007) of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, International Trade and Regional Integration in Port-Louis, Mauritius.
Mrs Dwarka-Canabady has a BA in Psychology, Sociology and English from the University of Leicester, an MA in International Politics from the University Libre of Brussels, and a Diplomatic Studies Program Certificate from the Graduate Institute International Studies in Geneva.
The Rt Hon Patricia Scotland QC is the 6th Commonwealth Secretary-General. She was born in Dominica and was their candidate for the post at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in Malta in 2015. She is the 2nd Secretary-General from the Caribbean and the 1st woman to hold the post.
Patricia Scotland was born in the Commonwealth of Dominica. She completed her LLB (Hons) London University at the age of twenty and was called to the Bar at Middle Temple at the age of twenty-one.
Her career has been marked by achieving a number of extraordinary firsts, not least of which was to be the first woman in the more than 700-year history of the office to serve as Her Majesty’s Attorney-General for England and Wales and for Northern Ireland.
While holding these and other senior ministerial offices she was given responsibility, inter alia, for gender equality, domestic violence, forced marriage, and international child abduction, and from these positions promoted diversity and equality of opportunity, particularly for women and girls.
As the only woman to have been appointed Secretary-General of Commonwealth she is placing special emphasis on mobilising the 54 nations of the Commonwealth to tackle climate change – including its disproportionate impact on women – and, through women’s enterprise, to build the resilience of smaller or more vulnerable countries. Eliminating domestic violence and violence against women and girls is another area of focus.
Chantal Line Carpentier joined UN Trade and Development (UNCTAD)'s Division on International Trade and Commodities (DITC) in 2014, after serving as Chief, UNCTAD New York Office of the Secretary-General. She brings to the Branch over 25 years of work experience in international trade, and environmental and agro-economics.
Prior to working with UNCTAD, she supported the Commission on Sustainable Development and served as Major Groups (of non-State actors) coordinator for the UN Rio+20 Conference and the SDGs negotiations at the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA). She also supported the sustainable consumption and production and sustainable agriculture negotiations.
As Head of the North American Free Trade Agreement Commission for Environmental Cooperations, she lead work on the nexus of environment, economy, and trade. She also served as Agro-environmental Policy Analyst for Winrock International, and post-Doctoral fellow/Brazil office manager for the International Food Policy Research Institute.
She has an extensive list of publications on sustainable agriculture, trade and environment, sustainable consumption and production, financing for sustainable development, stakeholder engagement, global value chains, micro, small and medium enterprises, and economic empowerment of women.
She obtained a PhD. in Agro-Environmental Economics from Virginia Technology and MSc. and BSc. from McGill University.
David Vivas Eugui is Chief (a.i) of the Trade, Environment and Sustainable Development Branch at UNCTAD.
Previously, he was a Senior Economic Affairs Officer in UNCTAD’s Trade Negotiations and Commercial Diplomacy Branch, Deputy Programmes Director at the International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development (ICTSD), Senior Attorney at the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL), Attaché for Legal Affairs at the Mission of Venezuela to the World Trade Organization (WTO) and Staff Attorney at the Venezuelan Institute of Foreign Trade. David is an international expert with more than 20 years of experience on legal and economic issues.
He has worked as an advisor and consultant for various institutions, international and national organizations and has lectured on intellectual property, trade, oceans economy and environmental law at the University of Strasbourg (CEIPI), Universidad de Buenos Aires (Argentina), Universidad Javeriana (Colombia), Maastricht University (the Netherlands), WIPO Distant Learning Academy, and University of Business and International Studies (Switzerland).
He holds a JD from the Universidad Catolica Andres Bello, an LLM from Georgetown University and a Master in Transnational Business from the Universidad Externado de Colombia.
Audun has been with FAO for 25 years, where he is currently the Deputy Director of the Fisheries and Aquaculture Division. Audun was for many years also the Secretary of FAO’s Sub-Committee on Fish Trade (COFI:FT), the main international body for discussion and recommendations on trade and market issues in the sector, as well as the Coordinator of the GLOBEFISH project.
His thematic work areas include aquaculture policy development and management, commodity price trends and price indexes, policy issues related to international trade and market access, market-based instruments, social responsibility, certification, traceability, trade and food security, gender issues, and domestic and regional market development.
Before joining FAO, he worked as an independent agribusiness consultant, project manager at Norway’s Embassy in Italy, and financial analyst on the Oslo Stock Exchange.
Audun has a Ph.D. in Agricultural Sciences from the Sea Fisheries Institute in Poland, a Master’s in Business Administration from Harvard University, and a Bachelor of Arts in Economics from the Norwegian School of Economics.
Jérôme Bonnafont is the Permanent Representative of France to the United Nations Office at Geneva since September 2021.
Prior to his appointment in Geneva, Mr. Bonnafont was, since September 2020, working on human resources policies at the Ministry of European and Foreign Affairs, after having been Advisor to the Prime Minister, from January 2020 to July 2020. Previously, between 2015 and 2019, Mr. Bonnafont was the Director of North Africa and the Middle East at the Ministry of European and Foreign Affairs. From 2011 to 2012, he was Chief of Staff to the Minister of State, Minister of Foreign Affairs.
Mr. Bonnafont served as the Ambassador of France to Spain (2012-2015) and to India (2007-2011). He was Counselor at the Permanent Mission of France to the United Nations in New York (1993-1995) and at the Embassy of France in Kuwait (1991-1993), as well as Secretary at the Embassy of France in India (1986-1989).
The Permanent Representative also worked as the Advisor for Global Affairs and the Spokesperson for the Presidency of the Republic (1997-2007), Head of the International Affairs Department of the Ministry of the Environment (1996-1997), and in the Directorate of Legal Affairs at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (1995-1996).
Born on 8 January 1961, Mr. Bonnafont is a graduate of the Institut d'Etudes Politiques de Paris and the École Nationale d'Administration.
Shara Duncan-Villalobos is Lawyer by profession and career diplomat since 2006. Currently serving as Ambassador Deputy Permanent Representative and Chargée d’Affaires a.i. of Costa Rica to the United Nations Office and other international organizations based in Geneva.
Ambassador Duncan-Villalobos has a Master’s degree in Human Rights and Education for Peace from the Universidad Nacional, Costa Rica. Graduated from the Raphael Lemkin Seminar for the Prevention of Genocide, the Summer Course on Public International Law of the Hague Academy of International Law and the XXIV Interdisciplinary Course on Human Rights of the Inter-American Institute of Human Rights, San José, among others.
She has served as Legal Advisor in the Permanent Mission to the UN in New York, Counsellor in the Netherlands, and Consul in Nicaragua. Within the Ministry she served as coordinator of the Cooperation programs with South America, advisor to the Minister on International Litigation, Advisor to the Vice Minister on Human Rights related issues, and many others.
A former United Nations diplomat with 27 years of experience in the diplomatic service. He served on request as Secretary of the Ministerial meetings of the G77 prior to UNCTAD in Tehran, Havana, Morocco, South Africa and as Secretary of the G77 regional meetings in Bangladesh, Jordan, Lebanon.
He assisted and advised the Government of Qatar in organizing the South Summit in Doha, 2004, and other countless events including the GATES conference in Shanghai and GPA in Beijing.
He has BA in business administration from Mustensiriya University (1968) and a Msc and PhD at the University of Wales (1972-76).
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Topic
Trade and environment Programme
Event
Contact
Mr. David Vivas Eugui
Trade, Environment, Climate Change and Sustainable Development Branch, UNCTAD
[email protected]
Ms. Claudia Contreras
Trade, Environment, Climate Change and Sustainable Development Branch, UNCTAD
[email protected]