Driving investment into ocean resilience
A resilient, net zero and economically secure world is not possible without a healthy, regenerating ocean.
The Ocean, one of the planet’s greatest assets, is in crisis. Heating, leading to extreme weather events, sea level rise, and adverse ecosystem changes as well as pollution, overfishing and destructive fishing, rising levels of acidity and biodiversity loss all jeopardise its health.
ORRAA is the only multi-sector collaboration connecting the international finance and insurance sectors, governments, non-profits, and stakeholders from the Global South to pioneer finance products that incentivise investment into coastal and ocean Nature Based Solutions (NBS). Our goal, by 2030, is to activate at least USD$500 million of investment into this space, and in so doing, help build the resilience of at least 250 million climate vulnerable coastal people.
Immediate and scaled action is needed to build resilience to change
The heart of ORRAA’s mission is focused on building the resilience and adaptive capacity of marine and coastal ecosystems and the coastal communities around the world that rely on them. We do this by driving investment into ocean and coastal NBS, as well as through the mitigation of risk multipliers like overfishing and pollution. These solutions will enable the Ocean and the communities which depend on it to thrive, creating greater economic security as well as social and cultural resilience for climate vulnerable coastal communities.
Rebuilding and restoring ‘blue nature’ means protecting the critical impact buffers and biodiversity reservoirs that provide food, social and economic security to billions of people and businesses across the world.
We work from beachfront to boardroom, working with communities from the ground-up to invest into nature-, climate- and gender-positive locally-led finance and insurance products; tackling the missing middle by building the platforms, frameworks and financial vehicles to build the market; and, through the Sea Change Impact Financing Facility (SCIFF), working from the top-down to construct the capital market for the Ocean.
Financial Innovation
Financial Innovation
ORRAA works across geographies to achieve this, driving the creation of a new global ocean finance ecosystem, enabling a step-change in the scale of finance channeled towards ocean and coastal community resilience and adaptation.
ORRAA supports work in coastal Least Developed Countries (LDCs) and Small Island Developing States (SIDS) by piloting and scaling innovative finance projects that will leverage greater private investment into coastal resilience. We also recognise that ocean risk is not gender neutral and this is why it is a key focus of the Alliance. Women and girls are more adversely impacted both during and after disasters
Science and Research
Science and Research
Accelerating research and modelling on ocean risk and resilience to inform financial innovation and policy action that reduces the impacts of climate and ocean change through better understanding, analysis, prediction, modelling, and management of ocean risk; and improving the design and implementation of gender-sensitive ocean resilience projects in key vulnerable regions.
Policy and Governance
Policy and Governance
Informing, advancing, and driving public and private policy commitments and action that value nature, build coastal resilience, reduce ocean risk, and accelerate the delivery of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs); by acting as a connector and catalyst for cross-sector collaboration across the Global North and South; and advancing global action to address ocean risk and improve coastal resilience, with policymakers, finance leaders, and investors.
SCIFF
Ocean risk and climate risk equals financial risk, so it is critical to work beyond individual projects to scale investment at speed. With our partners, we are developing a global coastal and ocean financing architecture: the Sea-Change Impact Financing Facility (SCIFF), an open design structure to rapidly increase investment into sustainable initiatives and projects that expand and protect coastal and ocean nature to enable greater resilience.
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