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This is an edited transcript of the virtual presentation delivered by Catherine Fritz-Kalish AM, Director of ICDP, on the Blue Economy panel at the Green Rio Summit on 31 October 2024 in Brazil.

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Good afternoon. Hello Brazil and Blue Economy Rio Summit participants.

Boa tarde!  It’s an honour to  address you. I wish I was there with you in person.

I am Catherine Fritz-Kalish, speaking to you from Australia.

I grew up living very close to our famous Bondi Beach which is almost as famous as your Copacobana. Growing up by this magnificent ocean, I developed a deep appreciation for the Pacific Ocean’s incredible beauty, a healthy respect for its awesome power but also increasing concern for its threatened ecology. I’m lucky to live on the world’s largest island continent.

Today I am representing two organisations – I am Managing Director of Global Access Partners (GAP) and I am a Director of the International Centre for Democratic partnerships (ICDP). I was invited to speak because we have an exciting story to share about the way ‘Large Ocean States’ of the Pacific are working with Australia to develop the region’s Blue Economy in sustainable ways.

My role today is to provide a high-level overview of the Pacific Region’s Blue Economy and then to explore how our experience may be relevant for Brazil’s sustainable SME sector.

Please consider how our experience can translate to a similar collaboration between Brazil and the Pacific region. Ultimately, I would like to invite those of you that are interested to work with us in building an alliance between Brazil, Australia and the Pacific.

To frame this discussion, let’s consider the Australian context. Australia’s Blue Economy generates over 118 billion Australian dollars annually and supports almost half a million jobs across diverse sectors, including offshore energy, fisheries and aquaculture, marine tourism, and transport.

Australia is a global ‘blue carbon hotspot’, home to 12% of the world’s blue carbon ecosystems, which hold between 7% and 12% of global carbon stocks.

However, just like Brazil our coasts and marine ecosystems face numerous threats—from climate change and coastal development to land-based runoff and direct human impact. As a member of the global Ocean Panel, Australia is committed to sustainable ocean management.

We’ve also signed the  UN High Seas Biodiversity Treaty and initiated the Sustainable Ocean Plan, along with the establishment of National Ocean Accounts to measure policy impact.

Our Blue Economy policy is integral to Australia’s broader commitment to achieving net-zero emissions by 2030. So we are working collaboratively with global organisations who share our values and goals, and we are actively working alongside our First Nations peoples, the traditional custodians of our country. One example of this kind of collaboration includes the Saltwater People Alliance, which aims to address the power imbalances faced by Traditional Owners. This initiative supports the preservation of their Sea Country, helping to record and share the cultural significance of these waters.

The Pacific Island Nations context is vastly different from Australia’s in terms of Blue Economy development. In total, there are 14 Pacific Island Nations spread across thousands of islands.

The Pacific Islands are at the forefront of climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution, despite themselves contributing less than 1% to global greenhouse emissions. It is the most aid-dependent region in the world – Around 6.5% of the region’s GDP is derived from foreign aid, rising to almost a third for small island nations, once Papua New Guinea and Fiji are excluded.

Three-quarters of the Pacific population live in rural areas and rely on agriculture and fishing for their livelihoods. And for those outside the agricultural sector, men outnumber women in paid employment by 2 to 1 and men earn 20-50% more than women.

So, considering this context, what are some solutions to Blue Economy challenges across the Pacific? How do we develop long-lasting, meaningful connections between the people of the Pacific and Australians to build a sustainable Blue Economy and make a real impact?

Our solution rests on supporting sustainable small and medium-sized businesses to grow, and we do that through the ICDP  – an organisation formed seven years ago to answer the Australian Government’s call for solutions to strengthen relationships and people-to-people links between Australia and the Pacific Island nations.

ICDP is an independent, non-profit organisation that aims to build businesses that engage both Australian and Pacific Island entrepreneurs. ICDP started as a collaboration between government and business. It came as a result of GAP’s ‘Second Track’ process of bringing a group of stakeholders together with a common problem, and developing a solution together.

The ICDP network has now grown to over 1,300 members, primarily from Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Vanuatu and Australia. Sixty percent of our members are women entrepreneurs.

Our objectives include supporting entrepreneurs through capacity building and seed funding, enhancing collaboration in sustainable development, promoting Pacific Island women as leaders, and deepening understanding between Australia and Pacific Island nations.

ICDP has also established 10 hubs across the Pacific where entrepreneurs can meet both physically and virtually. We have local Hub coordinators who help us run capacity building workshops and network events, promote quarterly newsletters and offer mentoring opportunities.

I have spent many hours talking with Pacific-based entrepreneurs, and last month I facilitated a dialogue with representatives from six different Pacific countries about how best to develop the Blue Economy in the region. We had robust honest discussions, specifically to advise this Summit on what the reality is on the ground across the Pacific. We discussed the challenges but also the successes of the region.

Let me share their thoughts with you.

Taholo Kami, a well-known oceans expert from Fiji, explained that in terms of tehe Blue Economy and aquaculture, most ministerial meetings in the region are still dominated by the tuna industry, but building viable as well as vibrant Large Ocean States will require economic diversification and official representation from local communities as well as tuna industry interests. The sea cucumber – bêche-de-mer – is a billion-dollar market in China, for example, and could be one of several high value fisheries developed in the Pacific over the next 10 years.

Tourism remains the region’s other major industry, and Cook Islands, Fiji, Samoa and Palau offer high-performing examples of success. Fiji is now exploring ways to shift the focus from highly commercial, Western-owned cruise lines to ‘small house’ stays which benefit local communities and allow more people to experience the natural beauties of these islands.

Local, regional, and international shipping and transportation offer another avenue for growth, and Vanuatu and Tuvalu are already encouraging the use of non-fossil fuels for marine transportation, ferries and fishing boats. Most small boats still rely on simple two-stroke engines, and international assistance to adopt more efficient four-stroke and eventually electric motors will help drive this transformation.

Growing geopolitical rivalries in the region put Pacific Island nations in a stronger position to leverage partnerships and attract investments in ways which were not possible five or ten years ago. While securing investment without surrendering sovereignty will be a balancing act, there is an increasing international willingness to fund sustainable development and climate projects.

There is a real opportunity to support and grow Pacific Island businesses, and at ICDP we are working on the ground to do that with entrepreneurs.

Salote Waqairatu-Waqainabete, Managing Director of Landscaping Solutions and ICDP Hub Coordinator for Suva, Fiji, is one of those entrepeneurs. Having built a successful landscape supply company in Suva, an interesting observation from Salote was that while she appreciates the importance of digital literacy beyond online marketing, balancing business compliance, new technology and financial probity with traditional obligations and priorities remains an issue, as she feels obligated to meet local criteria of success as well as Western measures.

Josh Forde from digital consultancy firm Ackama in New Zealand has operated in the Pacific for the last seven years. The company sees ample opportunities for its services in developing the region’s Blue Economy. Rather than focus on geopolitical and governance concerns, the company believes that recent investment in better broadband links across the Pacific will help businesses and communities connect with each other and take advantage of these new opportunities in agile ways more quickly than countries chained to legacy infrastructure.

Cam Neil, Founder of Red Hat impact, commented during our dialogue that developing an innovative finance framework like the one he is creating could help cooperatives of smaller firms develop into de-facto larger businesses, as they did in Western countries two hundred years ago. Such cooperatives can expand to a much larger size while maintaining their membership model, and retooling this historic Western model could create new opportunities in the Pacific today.

So opportunities are diverse and must take into account local cultural and social needs.

The best way to  illustrate the collaborative work we do at ICDP and the opportunities for sustainable business development is through a case study example.

One of the ICDP companies is called Less than Container Load (LCL). My colleague James Kana is founder and Director. He realised that small cocoa growers in the Solomon Islands could not fill a whole shipping container on their own and so it was too expensive for them to ship their products to export markets. In response, James developed a seamless way to optimise their use of shipping containers by brining all the growers together and sharing the costs of freight and logistics and filling a container together.

Once he had developed his solution plan, James was introduced to the ICDP network, and this opened up a network he was able to use for funding and support. Seed funding from the Australian Government in 2022 enabled the pilot and business plan development. More support from the ICDP Network developed the idea and James’ network even further. The Less than Container Load pilot was a success.

But that is not all. Less than Container load has diversified as a result of global environmental  regulations. Growers wanting to export to Europe need to comply with new climate impact standards which required the tracking of emissions and impact reports, and so LCL could develop a solution for this too.

LCL is developing a digital platform to help organise and aggregate small farmers’ produce to improve the efficiency and increase scale of theeir trade. LCL continues to expand its network and is looking for further opportunities with local government and international partners as well as the private sector.

ICDP has supported James, connected him with partners and supporters, and helped with capacity building.

This is one example, but there are many that have come from collaboration through Global Access Partners, ICDP and the ICDP Pacific network.

ICDP’s initiatives in the Pacific highlight the benefits of collaboration in addressing pressing challenges like climate change, biodiversity loss, and pollution.

ICDP works with local governments, local businesses, local service providers and global NGOs and funding sources such as the Australian Government and US Agency for International Development, and we are exploring locally led commercial solutions to Pacific issues, focusing on innovative and sustainable business practices.

As we look to the future, I encourage collaboration between the public and private sectors in Australia and Brazil. What can we learn from each other? How can we leverage frameworks such as the G20, particularly the Oceans 20 Engagement Group, to enhance our efforts? Could we build on the successes of ICDP to foster similar projects with Brazilian SMEs?

Together, we can drive meaningful change and create a sustainable future for our oceans and the communities that depend on them.

Thank you. I’d now like to invite Peter Fritz, Chair of Global Access Partners to explain how you can work together with us.

[end of transcript]

Presentation slides are available here.