About
MeerWissen supports cooperation between African and German marine research institutions. This initiative of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) seeks to give policy-makers the information they need to take knowledge-based decisions for the effective management and conservation of Africa’s ocean and coasts.
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Season 3 – Episode 1: Towards a sustainable ocean economy: A pipedream or a real opportunity for transformation?
Welcome to the 1st episode of the 3rd season of Ocean InSight!

Episode 15 (French): Solutions basées sur les connaissances pour favoriser une économie bleue durable en Afrique de l'Ouest (copy 1)
Bienvenue dans le quinzième épisode de la série 2 du podcast OceanInsight.

Bonus Episode: Early Career Ocean Professionals: What ocean science for sustainable development?
To mark World Oceans Day 2023, this special episode of the MeerWissen podcast looks at how Early Career Ocean Professionals in 5 African countries…

Co-designing partnerships for coastal protection in Tunisia
The MeerWissen project ORIENTATE pursues strong partnerships with stakeholders and co-designs solution-oriented research for sustainable development.…
Co-design paper published in the first issue of the WIO science to policy platform series
An insightful discussion paper “Co-design as the basis for collaboration and science to policy uptake in the Western Indian Ocean Region” was recently…

New MeerWissen project selected to strengthen marine Nature-based Solutions in Africa
The MeerWissen Initiative – African-German Partners for Ocean Knowledge and the United Nations Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development…

Assessing the biodiversity of eels (BIOEELS_TZ)
Assess species composition, distribution, abundance of migratory eels and associated fish communities in selected coastal ecosystems and define ecosystem parameters.
Country / Region
Tanzania

Marine Ecosystem Services for MSP (NAMares)
Supporting planners in making more informed decisions by improving the available knowledge base on marine ecosystem services in Namibia and providing decision-support methods, including a spatial cost-benefit approach, that allows trade-offs to be assessed.
Country / Region
Namibia

Conserving functional diversity and promoting a sustainable Blue Economy (INDUCE)
Producing sound scientific knowledge for the conservation of fish functional diversity from socially inclusive and environmentally-sustainable economic growth perspectives in Senegal.
Country / Region
Senegal

OceanogRaphIc and Ecological dAta for Nature-based coasTAl proTEction
ORIENTATE attempts to facilitate the adaptive governance of the coastal erosion risks in Tunisia by providing sustainable, cost-effective data and developing a living lab of nature-based mitigation.
Country / Region
Tunisia
Seaweed for blue economies, biodiversity and ecosystem services (CLIMALG-SN)
Updating the current inventory of seaweeds in Senegal, assessing their influence on coastal marine biodiversity and identifying bottlenecks for their recent exploitation.
Country / Region
Senegal

Nature based SOlutions for Mitigation of WATershed pollution: Cross-habitat facilitation by coastal seagrass meadows
The goal of the project SOMWAT is to assess the role of seagrass meadows for reducing watershed pollution.
Country / Region
Tanzania and South Africa

African Penguins and the Blue Economy (Penguins)
Optimize conservation policies through provision of key data and models to inform strategies and monitoring tools as early-warning systems.
Country / Region
Namibia, South Africa

Mancoga: Mangroves as Nature-based Solutions to Coastal Hazards
The project MANCOGA aims at developing decision support tools for mitigating erosion and flooding along Ghana’s east coast.
Country / Region
Ghana

Taking the pulse of the Ocean (PULSE)
Finding a suitable and sustainable solution of retrieving ocean and coastal data for decision making processes.
Country / Region
Senegal

Participatory Modeling for Nature-based Solutions in the WIO-Region (PAMO)
To facilitate the implementation of Nature-based solutions (NbS), the project intends to provide decision makers with qualitative and quantitative decision support tools through participatory modelling.
Country / Region
Tanzania and Madagascar

West Indian Ocean Governance & Exchange Network (WIOGEN)
Project description
Integrated ocean governance approaches for the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity in the West Indian Ocean through establishing a science to policy networking platform, promoting scientific exchange, early career capacity development and integrative social learning approaches.
Country / Region
West Indian Ocean Region

Fishing Data East Africa (FiDEA)
Project description
Strengthening a science-based decision-making process in support of sustainable fisheries management in the East African region by developing a regional framework for the collection, sharing and analysis of fisheries data.
Country / Region
Mozambique, Tanzania, Zanzibar

CoastWise
Improving the integrated assessment of South Africa’s land-sea interface to enhance the knowledge base for informed decision-making. Generating new data, piloting new technology for coastal and marine ecosystem assessments, filling important knowledge gaps, translating this knowledge into formats that can be used in spatial management, and building capacity in South Africa and the region.
Country / Region
South Africa

Data Linking People (NeDiT)
Project description
Supporting the use of new and innovative digital technologies for policy-making in marine resource management in Eastern Africa. Achieving improved handling of biodiversity data in East Africa, through providing and assessing as well as communicating data.
Country / Region
Tanzania

West African Biodiversity under Pressure (WASP)
Project description
Facilitating the mainstreaming of biodiversity protection, into the management of the fisheries sector, the Oil & Gas industry and Protected Areas policies.
Country / Region
Mauritania