India’s diverse coastline and abundant marine resources support a thriving blue economy and millions of livelihoods. Our work with the World Bank in India has supported the Government of India’s adoption of the ‘Vision of New India by 2030’. This vision:
- emphasises the potential of the ocean to power economic growth
- envisions increases in the contribution of established blue economy sectors from an estimated 4% to 8% of GDP.
Our work provided a national framework and a demonstration of ocean accounts to support institutional and financial solutions that can secure India’s blue natural capital and build a sustainable future for this vital contributor to the Indian economy.
We worked with the World Bank, India’s Ministry of Earth Sciences, , and the National Centre for Coastal Research to build government capacity of government stakeholders in Ocean Accounting and to compile a range of ocean accounts to support the progress in sustainable ocean management.
In delivering this project, we:
- built stakeholder capacity in a natural capital approach through a series of workshops
- organised available data into ocean accounts on extent, condition, ecosystem services in physical and monetary terms, and the ocean economy
- developed recommendations for integrating ocean accounts within government strategy.
These ocean accounts provide the foundation for the India to continue to embed natural capital concepts and data within sustainable ocean policy, and support implementation of the Ministry of Statistics and Program Implementation’s ‘Ocean Ecosystem Accounts in India – A Framework.’
