Blue Economy, Challenges and Multilateral Cooperation in African Coastal Countries

International audience The oceans represent seventy-one percent of the earth’s surface. There are plenty of resources in the coastal and oceanic environment, and which is the potential “new fuel” for the future economy growth in the coastal nations. The international organizations such as the FAO, OCED, World Bank as well as some NGOs interested to push forward the marine nations to accelerate marine economy development. In recent decade, the marine economy or blue economy is the highlighting field interested by the public, the government and the researchers.In 2010, a famous book titled of The blue economy: 10 years, 100 innovations, 100 million jobs highlighted the concerns on the blue economy throughout the world (Pauli, 2010). Africa is a huge continent with long coastline. Development is the key task for the governments of African countries. To find the new sector of economic growth will accelerate the GDP increase and job position enlargement. In the year of 2015, the Agenda 2063 what we want popular version published by African Union, the marine economy/blue economy was regarded as the new engine for African economy growth in the future (AU, 2015).In Africa continent, thirty-eight of the fifty-four countries are coastal states with more than 90 percent of Africa’s imports and exports transported by sea. Marine space under Africa’s jurisdiction totalled about 13 million square kilometers. Marine fishery makes a vital contribution to the food security and nutrition supply for over 200 million Africans in coastal states. If fully exploited and well managed, Africa’s blue economy can therefore constitute a major source of wealth and sustainable development for the whole continent. The Blue Economy Policy Handbook for Africa produced by ECAs sub-regional Office in East Africa in 2015, was a contribution to helping the African coastal nations benefit from what the African Union call the "New Frontier of African Renaissance".No doubt that the blue economy is the strategic sector for economic development in the future. Not only the Africans, but also many researchers and international organizations warmly welcome the coming of the era of blue economy. Recently, some important conference and forum focusing on African blue economy were held at Nairobi and London in the year of 2018.The Sustainable Blue Economy Conference, held at Nairobi from 26th to 28th November 2018, was the first global conference on the sustainable blue economy and more than 18,000 participants from around the world are coming together to learn how to build a blue economy1. The ABEF 2018 (African Blue Economy Forum) held at London and many researchers, journalists, CEOs of international enterprises, officials of small island countries as well as the managers of NGOs participated to the forum2. The ABEF 2018 was the first ever forum on Africa blue economy. On 18 September 2018, the Economic Commission for Africa was fully committed to supporting the African Union, Regional Economic Communities (RECs) and member States to ensure that the untapped potentials of the continent’s blue economy are fully realized during the meeting of 24th Intergovernmental Committee of Experts (ICE) of Southern Africa on the theme of Blue Economy, Inclusive Industrialization and Economic Development in Southern Africa. The potentials of the blue economy development will benefit the industrial growth and economic development in South African states.In this paper, the author is an expert on coastal ocean sciences, and familiar with the blue economy in China. From a Chinese personal perspective, the author generally reviewed the marine resources and the potentials of the blue economy in Africa. Following the discussion on the challenges of blue economy development in Africa and providing some suggestions on the multilateral cooperation for Africa’s blue economy development in the future. The China’s role in African blue economy was also discussed.