First African Our Ocean Conference Concludes in Mombasa With $6.4 Billion in New Ocean Pledges

The 11th Our Ocean Conference (OOC11) concluded in Mombasa, Kenya on June 18, 2026 — the first edition of the conference ever held on African soil. Over 5,000 delegates from more than 100 governments, businesses, and civil society organizations announced 320 new commitments worth a combined $6.4 billion, covering marine protected areas, sustainable fisheries, climate resilience, and blue-economy investment. Headline pledges included a World Bank Group commitment of $1 billion over two years to help developing nations build resilient blue economies, a $682 million Canadian investment in coastal infrastructure through its Small Craft Harbours Program, and a $200 million Kenyan commitment to install electronic monitoring on all industrial fishing vessels in its waters. Five governments — Kenya, Comoros, the Dominican Republic, the United Kingdom, and Mexico — joined the High-Level Climate-Resilient Coral Reef Commitment (first launched at the 2025 UN Ocean Conference in Nice), expanding the coalition to 20 reef nations spanning every major coral region. Sixteen governments, eight of them African, signed the new Mombasa Declaration on fisheries transparency to combat illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing, and 43 countries backed an expanding moratorium on commercial deep-sea mining. Kenyan President William Ruto, who hosted the conference, said delegates had come 'to turn the tide.' Since the Our Ocean Conference series began in 2014, it has now generated more than $176 billion in cumulative commitments across 3,200+ pledges, though analysts note that tracking implementation of past promises remains the central unresolved challenge.