The Minister of Environmental Affairs, Edna Molewa, and her Angolan and Namibian counterparts, signed and adopted a new Benguela Current Commission (BCC) five-year Strategic Plan that commits the three countries to collaborate in the ocean environment today.
Minister Molewa was leading a South African delegation, including the Mineral Resources, Transport and Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries in Namibia and Angola.
The Benguela Current Convention is a formal agreement, between the governments of South Africa, Angola and Namibia. The agreement seeks to promote a coordinated regional approach to the long-term conservation, protection, rehabilitation, enhancement and sustainable use of the Benguela Current Large Marine Ecosystem, to provide economic, environmental and social benefits.
The new plan recognises that in order for the three countries to enjoy optimum benefits of the shared marine resources, they should engage on certain key issues for sustainable development of oceans. These include the marine transport and manufacturing; the offshore oil and gas mining; as well as fisheries. A common constraint in these sectors is infrastructure, skills and regulation.
“The Convention gives us all an opportunity to work together in addressing all these cross-cutting constraints that we face as member states of this commission. The Convention affords each one of the member state an opportunity to build synergy for optimal and sustainable use of our ocean space, which have tremendous potential to enhance our respective economies. It is therefore befitting to say that – alone one can go fast, but together we can go very far,” said Minister Molewa.
This new plan comes soon after the governments of the three countries had recently completed the domestic ratification processes for the formal establishment of the Convention.
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