Recognizing Large Ocean States for Better Development Support
Author: Andrew Hume, PhD candidate in Environment and Resources at Stanford University
Shortly after the world celebrated the codification of the 2015 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), the governments of Palau and Kiribati declared huge swaths of their sovereign ocean as marine protected areas, aligning with SDG 14, supporting the sustainable use of the ocean. Covering ocean areas larger than many countries, Kiribati’s Phoenix Islands Protected Area (PIPA) and Palau’s National Marine Sanctuary (PNMS) were described as monumental efforts and the two countries were declared global leaders for ocean conservation. Yet less than a decade later, both countries are in the process of reversing the protected status by allowing commercial fishing to resume, in an effort to stimulate their national economies heavily reliant on the ocean[i].
For many nations like Kiribati and Palau surrounded by ocean, national economic development means supporting a “blue” economy — interlinked economic, social, and environmental development goals based on the sustainable use of the ocean and its resources[1]. To successfully meet such sustainable development goals, developing nations heavily rely on international aid informed by country classifications, an international development mechanism directing specialized technical and financial support to countries facing common development challenges[2,3]. Unfortunately for some island nations, country classifications are largely based on outdated land-based economic measures[4]. As ocean geopolitics, climate change, fisheries, and other marine resource issues gain international attention, certain nations have increasingly been self-identifying as “large ocean states” (LOS), directly contrasting existing country classifications by citing the central role of the ocean for their development[4,5]. For LOS and their ocean-based sustainable development needs, country classifications are falling short and undermining development efforts with real world consequences. Core to this dilemma is the question of how country classifications can be improved to support nations that disproportionately rely on ocean resources to meet their sustainable development goals?
While a seemingly dull administrative exercise, country classifications are a widely used and very powerful international development mechanism. They are responsible for directing billions of dollars to groups of countries facing a common development constraint, such as socio-economic, health, education, or environmental issues. They are created and maintained by international organizations like the United Nations and the World Bank Group to track trends and emerging issues for informing policy, or to direct technical and financial support to specific countries, often through special access to concessional financing terms or funding sources. The controversial but commonly used “developing” and “developed” country distinction is perhaps the most well-known country classification, but there are more than 15 others currently in use. They include the Least Developed Country (LDC) classification supporting the poorest nations in the world and the Human Development Index (HDI) identifying countries based on a range of socio-economic and environmental indicators. The well-known Small Island Developing States (SIDS) classification[ii] assists nations with development constraints associated with various measures of geographic smallness, remoteness, limited natural resources and labor, and vulnerability to climate change. Despite their widespread use, some classifications are not well defined, misinforming policy and investments, and undermining development effectiveness. For example, the United Nations noted growing skepticism among donor countries for SIDS classifications due to imprecise definitions addressing too many issues and lacking a consistent country composition[6–8].
For SIDS like Kiribati and Palau, this can lead to real world consequences as evident in the fates of their large marine protected areas. The criteria used to identify SIDS is heavily focused on terrestrial activities and absent of measures that reflect a country’s ocean sovereignty[iii]. This is because the SIDS classification was originally derived from the LDC classification and United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) negotiations in the 1970s aimed at promoting economic development primarily occurring on land, such as agriculture, mining, and manufacturing[7,9,10]. These UNCTAD negotiations also predate the 1982 ratification of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) and establishment of Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZs), zones extending 200 nautical miles from a coastal baseline demarcating a country’s sovereign rights to all resources below the sea surface (i.e., the water column and sea floor). For many developing countries and especially the island nations reflected in SIDS classifications, the establishment of EEZs dramatically expanded their sovereign territory and led to newfound ownership of billions of dollars in ocean resources.
Since UNCLOS, additional multilateral initiatives supporting ocean conservation have been established, including the SDGs and efforts to expand marine protected areas. This growing number of commitments places a disproportionate burden of conservation action on developing countries, as they unfairly face external pressure and added financial costs to address the conservation and management of globally important marine species, habitats, and other ecosystem services[11–13]. One might mistakenly think that such major international development milestones would already be reflected with ocean-based criteria in SIDS classifications to address these ocean development issues, but that has not been the case. The more nations focus on ocean-based economic development, the greater the misalignment with SIDS classifications. This may seem benign, but public funds administered by the World Bank hosted Global Environment Facility (GEF), United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and many others have invested billions of dollars supporting SIDS, translating into uncoordinated and poorly designed investments that are not addressing critical ocean-based development constraints. With the UN already recommending improvements to the SIDS that have yet to be fully enacted, there is a clear need to revisit the mismatched support from the international development community to those nations that disproportionately rely on the ocean for their sustainable development.
Over the past few decades, a growing number of countries[iv] have begun identifying themselves in official intergovernmental settings as “large ocean states” or in synonymous terms, a self-assigned title frequently presented as distinct from the SIDS classification but without any formal international recognition or definition as a country classification[4,5,14,15]. In proclaiming themselves as LOS, countries often provide justification related to their economic dependence on the oceans and expanded ocean sovereignty. Self-identifying as a LOS represents a fundamental shift in how island countries assert sovereign rights over large areas of ocean that traditionally were unenforceable[10]. For nations that self-identify as LOS, the emphasis on the ocean’s disproportionate influence on sustainable development sets them apart from other countries. This self-identification nearly always reflects a nation’s interest in blue economy policies and plans for achieving SDGs, associated challenges they face with ocean management caused by climate change, and external expectations of them from international processes such as SDG commitments. When viewed as ocean-based development constraints, these unmet needs suggest there is an impetus for a new ocean-based country classification to complement ones currently in use. In fact, the growing number of nations self-identifying as LOS suggests an informal country classification may already be emerging4. LOS face a common development constraint of using very limited resources to manage vast areas of sovereign ocean territory to meet national sustainable development goals[4].
A new LOS classification’s support should specifically address national development constraints associated with the challenges of managing very large areas of sovereign ocean territory. For example, it could focus international support towards mobilizing additional funding into specific ocean management capabilities, such as national monitoring and enforcement vessels and staff, targeted trainings and geospatial analysis. Funding could also be directed to additional scientific research to better understand the living and non-living natural resources within their vast ocean environments[16,17]. Similarly, it could coordinate investments in ocean data collection for strengthening current national accounting frameworks to improve LOS classification metrics and help the international community better understand and track future ocean wealth issues[18]. It should likewise address the disproportionate burden of conservation action and additional financial costs from a growing number of multilateral ocean conservation agreements. This includes multiple international efforts to expand and improve management of marine protected areas linked to the Convention on Biological Diversity Aichi Target 11 and United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 14.5 aiming to conserve 10% of the ocean by 2020, and more recently, 30x30, a global effort to conserve 30% of land and ocean area by 2030. It might also address the added financial burden of curbing illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing in response to the United Nations Port States Measures Agreement. For certain Pacific island nations, it includes monitoring highly migratory and commercially important fish stocks under the Parties to the Nauru Agreement. Similarly, it could include ensuring equitable access to participate in current international negotiations addressing marine biodiversity beyond national jurisdiction (BBNJ) and seabed mining with the International Seabed Authority.
To identify specific LOS countries that would most benefit from international support to meet their sustainable development goals, a transparent and data-driven methodology led by country-level criteria should be employed that identifies a specific development constraint[2,19]. A new ocean-based LOS classification should consider three criteria: 1) an ocean economy central to a country’s overall national sustainable development plans; 2) a very large ocean territory relative to a country’s land mass, and 3) persistent ocean management challenges. The unique challenge of small countries managing resources over a very large ocean may be what distinguishes LOS from other nations. With many self-identified LOS already citing their EEZs, a potential metric could describe the ratio of nation’s sovereign ocean size relative to its land size. Criteria describing the importance of an ocean economy should identify countries that heavily rely or plan on their coasts and oceans for sustainable development. United Nations data collection standards like the System of National Accounts (SNA) show potential for quantifying this, such as the metric on percentage of agriculture, forestry, and fishing, value added to a country’s GDP. This is a decent proxy for fishing-dominated ocean economies with very limited surface area and are incapable of supporting large scale agriculture or forestry. Lastly, for many countries managing very large ocean areas, their most limiting factor is management resources. This constraint can be estimated by calculating a nation’s GDP relative to its EEZ (i.e. GDP per km2 EEZ), which approximates a country’s potential for investing in management capacity with respect to the amount of ocean area needing to be managed. Used together, these three criteria identify a specific group of countries[v] that benefit the most from targeted support in addressing development constraints due to their disproportionally high reliance on the ocean to meet sustainable development goals.
By many measures, the world is already behind in meeting SDG milestones and poorly designed country classifications directing inefficient support are not helping. For the many LOS nations that disproportionately rely on ocean resources for their sustainable development, the mismatch of their ocean-based needs and land-based SIDS support is undermining their chances to succeed. And with roughly one third of the global ocean area under national jurisdiction, poorly managed national oceans mean poorly managed global oceans, impacting the food we all eat, the air we breathe, and the many other services the ocean provides. With the international community supporting more countries in developing and implementing ocean-based sustainable development plans, the time to embrace a new ocean-based model of international development support is now.
Andrew Hume is a PhD candidate in Environment and Resources at Stanford University researching linkages between oceanography and sustainable development. He draws on past field research experiences in marine science and professional experiences working in sustainable development for the World Bank, UN, and international NGOs. Andrew has a B.A. and M.Sc. in Environmental Science from the University of Virginia.
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[i] In November 2021, the Government of Kiribati announced it was opening it’s Phoenix Islands Protected Area (PIPA) to commercial fishing to boost its economy after lost fishing revenue tied to the Parties of the Nauru Agreement (PNA) and its Vessel Day Scheme and selling of fishing days permits. Similarly, the Government of Palau has been in discussions since 2019 about opening up commercial fishing within its Palau National Marine Sanctuary per Olbiil Era Kelulau draft bills no. 11–30–2S.
[ii] In fact, unlike other country classifications, there is no one agreed upon SIDS classification, but instead multiple classifications using varying criteria resulting in multiple SIDS country lists, ranging from 58 to 28 countries.
[iii] SIDS classification criteria often include some of the following themes: a) size, defined both in terms of land area and population; b) remoteness or “islandness”; c) a limited supply of natural resources; d) a limited supply of human resources, and; e) vulnerability to economic and/or natural shocks, including impacts of climate change. See Hein (2010) and Hume et al (2021) for further discussion.
[iv] Self-identified LOS countries include Belize, Dominica, Fiji, Kiribati, Maldives, Marshall Islands, Mauritius, Federated States of Micronesia, Nauru, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Seychelles, Solomon Islands, and Tonga
[v] Using the proposed LOS classification criteria has a simple linear filter identifies the following LOS countries: Cabo Verde, French Polynesia, Kiribati, Maldives, Marshall Islands, Mauritius, Micronesia, Nauru, Palau, Sao Tome and Principe, Seychelles, Tonga, and Tuvalu.
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