ESSAY 1: Africa's Blue Finance Development under the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development

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JANUARY 2026

by Xingcan Zhou

Abstract

Blue finance represents a cutting-edge financial paradigm proposed by the United Nations for marine resource development and the realisation of Sustainable Development Goals. Within the framework of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the UN and its relevant agencies have initially established a planning framework for blue finance to effectively promote the sustainable development and utilisation of marine resources. As a continent with a 26,000-kilometre coastline, Africa actively aligns itself with the UN’s SDGs, proactively seeks international cooperation, and innovatively employs blue financial instruments, constituting an important global attempt to explore broader pathways for food security and pursue marine ecological conservation. However, the institutional shortcomings of existing international financial cooperation mechanisms struggle to meet Africa’s blue finance development needs. From the perspective of sustainable development demands in the Global South countries, blue finance is intricately linked to the transformation of traditional finance, encompassing issues such as social financing in marine development investments, the investment structures of sovereign states, sovereign ownership of coastal states in global governance, and the distribution of marine rights and interests revenues. Thus, exploring new definitions and collaborative models for blue finance from the perspective of financial cooperation in the Global South constitutes a significant theoretical endeavour for global governance reform and the achievement of sustainable development goals.

Keywords: Blue Finance, Africa, Sustainable Development, Marine Resources, Global Governance

1. Introduction

Blue finance is a cutting-edge financial paradigm proposed by the United Nations (the UN) for marine resource development and the realisation of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (hereinafter referred to as the Agenda) lists “protecting and sustainably using the oceans and marine resources for sustainable development” as one of its 14 goals, creating a favourable international policy environment for the rise and development of blue finance.

The UN and its relevant agencies have also issued a series of documents to initially establish a planning system for blue finance. However, the existing international financial system embodies a distinct post-WWII “core-periphery” power structure in international governance, with current blue finance standards predominantly formulated by developed countries—prioritising environmental-economic balance while ignoring core demands of the Global South countries, such as definitions of blue finance, attribution of marine sovereignty, and fair distribution of benefits. The Global South countries also lack effective voice in key issues like capital investment models and definition of sovereign rights and interests.

As a Global South representative with a 26,000-kilometre coastline, Africa’s blue finance practices represent not only a regional development issue but also a critical arena for testing the Agenda’s inclusivity and observing contradictions in international rulemaking. Therefore, exploring new definitions of blue finance and collaborative research under the Agenda framework from the perspective of the Global South cooperation constitutes an important theoretical exploration for global governance reform and the achievement of sustainable development goals.

2. Planning Mechanisms of Blue Finance under the Agenda

Blue finance serves as an essential financial instrument for the development of the blue economy. Currently, the international community has yet to establish a unified definition of blue finance, and existing frameworks largely remain confined to traditional finance. The United Nations Environment Programme Finance Initiative (UNEP FI) defines “financing for the sustainable blue economy” as “financial activities (including investments, insurance, banking, and supporting intermediary activities) that participate in or support the development of a sustainable blue economy, particularly through the application of the Principles for Sustainable Blue Economy Finance in financial decision-making and environmental, social, and governance (ESG) frameworks” (UNEP FI, 2021). Since the World Bank established the Blue Ribbon Panel in 2013, the UN and relevant agencies have successively issued policy initiatives and investment guidelines, initially constructing a planning system for blue finance. However, this system still reveals defects in top-down rule provision.

2.1 Clear Practice Principles and Broad Influence of Initiatives

The Principles for Sustainable Blue Economy Finance (hereinafter referred to as the Principles) serve as the practical guidelines for blue finance and a critical basis for regulating the blue finance market. Jointly launched in 2018 by the European Commission, World Wide Fund for Nature, World Resources Institute, and European Investment Bank, the Principles are managed by the UNEP FI. As the world’s first principle framework guiding financial institutions to promote marine sustainable development, the Principles provide comprehensive and systematic guidance for financial institutions’ investment, financing, and risk management activities in the blue economy, filling a gap in the development of blue finance and leading financial institutions to align their operations with marine sustainable development goals (Guo & Bi, 2022).

Currently, over 80 institutions worldwide have become signatories or members of the Principles (UNEP FI, 2023). To operationalise the Principles and urge more countries and financial institutions to engage with blue finance, UNEP FI officially launched the Sustainable Blue Economy Finance Initiative (hereinafter referred to as the Initiative) in 2019 based on the Principles. The Initiative brings together multi-stakeholder participants including financial institutions, scientists, enterprises, and civil society organisations, enhancing the financial sector’s and broader society’s attention to blue finance and driving innovation in blue finance-related standards, products, and services.

2.2 Clear Guidelines and Diverse Development Pathways

The guiding principles of blue finance build on those of green finance, clarifying and operationalising relevant standards through a series of guidelines. In 2022, the International Finance Corporation (IFC) issued the Blue Finance Guidelines, establishing the first global blue asset classification standards and a blue activity inventory. These translate general blue economy financing principles into specific reference criteria for blue bond issuance and blue loan disbursement, providing a foundation for global blue finance implementation.

In 2023, the IFC and multiple international organisations jointly developed the New Guidance on Blue Bonds to Help Unlock Finance for A Sustainable Ocean Economy, offering market participants clear standards, practices, and case examples for blue bond financing and issuance (UNEP FI, 2023). Blue finance development pathways advocated by the UN are closely anchored in relevant principle frameworks, balancing specificity and comprehensiveness. Reports such as Turning the Tide: How to Finance a Sustainable Ocean Recovery and Diving Deep：Finance，Ocean Pollution and Coastal Resilience propose sustainable pathways for key marine industries, focusing on sector-specific characteristics to enhance operational relevance.

2.3 Unequal Power Dynamics in Rulemaking

The UN does not treat the marine sovereignty of the Global South countries as a core governance issue but rather views their marine spaces solely as resource carriers and tools for achieving Agenda goals. This stems from at least three institutional contradictions. First, the UN’s current system perpetuates a power-dominated post-war order, leading to highly centralised blue finance rulemaking authority in international financial institutions led by developed countries. The Global South countries have long remained in a position of passive acceptance in key areas such as standard-setting and fund allocation.

Second, there is an institutional imbalance in sovereignty and benefit distribution: the marine sovereignty of coastal states is often diluted within the framework of “global public goods”, while international financial governance rules fail to establish fair benefit-sharing mechanisms. The flow of proceeds from marine resource development is severely disconnected from resource-owning countries’ development needs, causing erosion of resource sovereignty and financial sovereignty.

Finally, governance mechanisms underrepresent the Global South voices: “top-down” rulemaking systematically sidelines their participation in governance and rights definition. These inclusivity gaps in the UN framework risk hindering sustainable development goals.

3. Status Quo and Traits of Africa’s Blue Finance under the Agenda

The Western-dominated blue finance financing mechanism essentially perpetuates a governance model where “the Global South countries implement, while developed nations control rules”. Although most projects rely on Western funding, African countries inject local priorities into project designs to seek institutional breakthroughs within the framework.

3.1 Policy Alignment with Agenda Goals

In recent years, Africa has promoted blue economy development through systematic policy frameworks, aligning its Agenda 2063 with the UN Agenda, with blue finance serving as a key financing tool. In 2014, the African Union (AU) launched the African Integrated Maritime Strategy 2050 (AIMS 2050), emphasising joint development of marine resources, infrastructure, and ecological protection through financing. In 2015, the Agenda 2063 listed “developing a blue economy for sustainable growth” as a priority and positioned it as a frontier for African renewal. In 2016, the African Charter on Maritime Security, Safety and Development (Lomé Charter) formally integrated sustainable blue economy development into AU member states’ commitments, marking a major leap in regional cooperation (Zhang, 2021). In 2018, the AU established the Department of Agriculture, Rural Development, Blue Economy and Sustainable Environment to coordinate strategy formulation.

The 2020 African Blue Economy Strategy—a cornerstone document—stressed innovative financing mechanisms for marine resource development, renewable energy, and conservation (African Union, 2016). Special initiatives like the 2021 Great Blue Wall have advanced African-led climate action and marine protection (IUCN, N.d.). While lacking a standalone blue finance plan, Africa drives blue finance through long-term, coordinated blue economy policies.

3.2 International Cooperation for Agenda Implementation

Africa’s blue finance primarily relies on collaboration with international organisations, financial institutions, and other nations to advance Agenda implementation, with a consistent focus on sustainable development. The World Bank collaborates with members of the West Africa Sub-Regional Fisheries Commission, South West Indian Ocean Fisheries Commission, Indian Ocean Commission, as well as African Small Island Developing States and the Indian Ocean Rim Association, committing to increasing investments in sustainable fisheries and healthy oceans (World Bank, N.d.). In 2022, the World Bank launched the Blue Economy for Resilient Africa Program (BE4RAP) to support Africa’s coastal regions in addressing development challenges through financing (World Bank Group, 2022). Leveraging resources like the multi-donor trust fund PROBLUE, the Bank provides financial support for African blue economy projects.

In July 2024, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the African Union Commission (AUC) established a joint initiative—the Blue Economy Reference Group (BERG)—to serve as a platform for planning, implementing, and monitoring blue economy development (UNDP, 2024). African countries have also actively participated in mangrove blue carbon pilot projects, which exemplify blue finance applications in climate governance and global governance. These projects demonstrate Africa’s capacity to engage in global governance through blue finance, serving as successful models for sustainable marine resource management.

3.3 Innovative Tools for Agenda Objectives

Africa employs a series of innovative blue financial instruments aligned with the Agenda’s sustainable development goals. However, due to heavy reliance on funding from developed countries and international financial institutions, its innovations remain constrained. In other words, Africa must implicitly promote the localisation of governance rules through strategies such as goal substitution and tool adaptation within the Western-dominated institutional framework.

Among the three main financial instruments, blue bonds are the most representative. In 2018, Seychelles issued the world’s first blue bond, with transaction costs fully sponsored by the Rockefeller Foundation (Qiu & Zhou, 2024). In January 2023, Cabo Verde launched its first blue bond on the Blu-X sustainable finance platform, achieving the first privately issued bond without public guarantee, fully supported by market demand (Christopher, 2023).

The second instrument, “debt-for-nature”, involves partial debt relief for creditor countries in exchange for ecological protection commitments, a common debt relief model in developing countries typically guaranteed by multilateral development banks (iWeekly, 2023). Several African countries, including Seychelles, Madagascar, Gabon, and Mozambique, have begun practicing or exploring this mechanism. In 2015, The Nature Conservancy facilitated a groundbreaking debt swap agreement between Seychelles and the Paris Club, integrating marine protection into debt restructuring frameworks (Wang & Wang, 2020). In August 2023, Gabon completed a $500 million debt-for-nature transaction, earmarking $163 million for marine conservation—the largest debt restructuring deal signed by an African country (Global Finance Magazine, 2023).

The third instrument, blue funds, are specialised funds investing in marine conservation and sustainable use projects. On March 9, 2017, ten African countries signed a memorandum of understanding to establish the "Blue Fund", now with 17 member states, aiming to promote green and blue economic development among participants (Fonds Bleu pour le Bassin du Congo, N.d.). Africa’s innovative practices with blue financial instruments provide valuable experiences for global blue finance development.

4. Potential and Challenges of Africa’s Blue Finance under the Agenda

Against the backdrop of lagging inland infrastructure, blue finance has the potential to enhance the competitiveness of related industries and accelerate Africa's industrialisation process. However, Western countries influence project designs through rule-setting, mandating that funds be allocated to ecological conservation rather than industrial upgrading. This has trapped Africa in a cycle of low-value-added industrial lock-in, making it difficult to break through into higher-value sectors.

4.1 Potential for Africa’s Blue Finance from Industrial Upgrading

Africa, as one of the regions with the greatest blue economic potential globally, sees its blue finance development opportunities closely tied to resource endowments, international cooperation, and sustainable development goals. Blue finance serves as a key driver for Africa’s economic growth, ecological conservation, and global value chain integration by supporting marine resource development, infrastructure optimisation, and international cooperation mechanism innovation.

First, Core Industries’ High Financing Demand. Africa’s blue economy core industries—including fisheries, port logistics, marine energy, and coastal tourism—have significant financing needs. Africa holds 20% of global fishery resources, and World Bank projections indicate that scaled aquaculture could solve food security for 200 million people and boost export earnings by 2030 (Yang, 2024). In marine energy and mineral development, coastal countries like those in the Gulf of Guinea and South Africa have vast offshore wind and oil/gas potential. Projects such as the Morocco-UK Power Project, Egypt’s Suez Wind Farm, and Gotion High-Tech’s first phase in Morocco demonstrate diverse institutional funding for offshore renewables, reducing fossil fuel dependence and contributing to climate action. Current financing needs for African offshore renewables focus on exploration technology, clean energy equipment, and ecological compensation mechanisms. Technological progress, policy support, and growing demand are expected to unlock further financing potential for Africa’s energy transition and economic growth.

Second, Strong Momentum for Infrastructure Optimisation. Africa’s blue finance development heavily relies on modern infrastructure, where gaps present both challenges and opportunities. A PricewaterhouseCoopers report estimates that a 25% improvement in port performance could raise GDP by 2% (PricewaterhouseCoopers, 2018). With most African countries dependent on raw material exports and imports of food, manufactures, and fuel, ports are critical to trade. Continental port throughput is projected to grow from 265 million tons in 2009 to over 2 billion tons by 2040 (NEPAD, 2012), driving upgrades for existing ports and new projects like Lamu Port and Badagry Port. Improved port efficiency will increase cargo volumes, toll revenues, and related services, generating returns for financial investments. Current infrastructure financing needs to focus on deep-sea port construction, smart logistics systems, and regional connectivity projects. Developing multimodal transport—integrating inland waterways, roads, and railways—will enhance inland connectivity, with blue finance investments set to appreciate as trade scales and transport/warehousing demands grow.

Third, Substantial Potential in International Cooperation Mechanisms. International financing and cooperation mechanisms serve as catalysts for Africa’s blue finance development, unlocking potential through multilateral platforms, financial instrument innovation, and policy coordination. International financial institutions such as the World Bank, IMF, and African Development Bank have provided substantial funding and technical support for Africa’s blue economy projects, creating expanded opportunities for blue finance. For instance, the World Bank supports African countries in sustainable fisheries, marine conservation, and port development through loans, grants, and technical assistance. A series of international maritime conventions and initiatives also provide guidance and norms for Africa’s blue finance development. The UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) clarifies states’ rights and obligations in marine resource development, utilisation, and protection, offering legal foundations and safeguards for African nations to exploit marine resources. Under its framework, African countries can more explicitly plan blue economy development and attract international funding for projects compliant with legal norms.

4.2 Challenges to Africa’s Blue Finance from International Financial Rules

Africa’s blue finance market remains underdeveloped, facing a massive funding gap. On the surface, this stems from issues such as lack of macro guidance, investment risks from maritime disputes, and prominent structural contradictions in blue industries. At a deeper level, it originates from Africa’s marginalisation in international financial rulemaking, imbalanced power distribution in global ocean governance, and the absence of institutional guidance for industrial chain upgrading under the UN framework—multiple factors that collectively hinder blue finance from fully realising its potential.

First, the fragmentation of Africa’s blue finance strategies is essentially a result of the lack of voice for the Global South countries in international financial rulemaking. Current blue finance standards are predominantly shaped by Western institutions, whose environment-first regulatory orientation conflicts with African countries’ dual needs for “resource sovereignty and development”. This mismatch results in a lack of macro-coordination, planning, and robust governance frameworks for Africa’s blue finance development. While the AU and countries like Mauritius and Seychelles have introduced blue economy policy frameworks, specific blue finance strategies remain absent, leading to vague priorities and disjointed financial support measures. Additionally, policy implementation gaps in some African nations weaken the coherence and effectiveness of macroeconomic policies, impacting the pace and direction of financial sector development.

Second, the exacerbation of investment risks due to maritime disputes in Africa essentially reflects an imbalance in the allocation of ocean governance power. Disputes over exclusive economic zones (EEZs) and marine mineral resource boundaries—though seemingly about territorial claims—reflect deeper inequities in global ocean governance. Despite UNCLOS provisions on maritime boundaries, conflicts persist over resource extraction, undermining African states’ maritime governance capacities and deterring blue finance investments due to heightened risks. Piracy and armed robbery further exacerbate vulnerabilities, highlighting how Western-dominated rules fail to safeguard the Global South countries’ maritime sovereignty and resource rights, making Africa a focal point for generational governance conflicts.

Third, while Western financing alleviates funding shortages, blue finance projects disproportionately focus on ecological conservation, neglecting Africa’s urgent need for industrial chain upgrading. Traditional marine industries remain in an extensive development phase, plagued by low technological capacity and underdeveloped emerging sectors. Incomplete industrial chains—lacking synergies between traditional and new industries—hinder competitiveness and limit the ecological and economic impact of blue finance projects. This highlights a critical gap: the UN framework’s lack of institutional guidance for systematic industrial upgrading.

5. Reflections and Insights on Africa’s Blue Finance under the Agenda

Africa‘s blue finance practices within the Agenda framework highlight the institutional contradictions and innovative possibilities in global ocean governance. As a key to addressing the imbalance between rights and responsibilities in traditional governance systems, blue finance urgently requires redefinition around equitable governance rules. The Global South cooperation, by integrating the diverse demands of countries in the Global South, not only provides a pathway for unlocking the effectiveness of blue finance but also serves as a pivotal lever for reforming the global ocean governance system toward inclusivity and sustainability.

5.1 Blue Finance Requires Redefinition Around Governance Rules

The Agenda provides a macro-guidance framework for global sustainable development, yet existing institutional arrangements have not fundamentally resolved the deep-seated dilemmas in the field of blue finance. Against this backdrop, this paper aligns with the UN’s blue finance objectives, arguing that the core challenge lies in constructing effective implementation pathways, which necessitate the guiding role of new financial rules.

Blue finance can be defined as a strategic financial model that prioritises addressing basic livelihood issues through targeted capital investment, drives the development of the full marine industrial chain, and focuses on the real economy. Its implementation pathways include optimising real capital allocation, promoting marine industrial upgrading, and restructuring global governance systems. In other words, it involves constructing a development framework of “protein supply structuring—marine resource capitalisation—governance system equalisation”, forming a blue economic value chain through deep integration of capital and the real economy to achieve systematic breakthroughs from basic livelihood security to full industrial chain upgrading. This innovative model not only helps overcome the externality constraints of traditional marine development but also, by restructuring marine governance, establishes a new balance mechanism between sovereign states’ interests and global public welfare, driving a fundamental shift in the international community’s understanding of the strategic value of marine space. While blue finance under the UN framework emphasises balancing environmental and economic objectives, it overlooks the contradictions between institutions and rights in marine development. This paper advocates that blue finance should prioritise both livelihood issues and strategic industries, paralleling real economy construction with global governance innovation. Specifically:

(1) Problem Targeting: In response to the rigid growth in protein demand driven by global population growth and dietary upgrades, blue finance focuses on marine biological resource development to stimulate supporting industrial demand through enhanced protein supply capacity.

(2) Industrial Gradience: Blue finance advances marine real economy layout in phases, starting with biological resource development and gradually expanding to equipment manufacturing and high-end industries, comprehensively driving the development of the blue economy’s full industrial chain.

(3) Sustainability: By channeling funds toward ocean-friendly projects, blue finance protects biodiversity and enhances carbon sink capacity while investing in emerging industries to strengthen economic resilience and attract private capital. It also improves coastal livelihoods, creates jobs, and establishes fair marine resource revenue distribution mechanisms.

(4) Unique Risks: Blue finance must address natural risks like sea-level rise, ocean acidification, and extreme weather that damage marine infrastructure. Additionally, the lack of sufficient sovereign actors in blue economy development introduces investment uncertainties from high costs and long return cycles.

Thus, this paper identifies global ocean governance reform as a core dimension, emphasising the need to break through entrenched international power structures via financial tool innovation and reconstruct the Global South countries’ subject status in marine governance.

5.2 Blue Finance as a Catalyst for Global Ocean Governance Reform

The development of Africa’s blue finance, in essence, represents an institutional exploration by the Global South countries to reconstruct existing marine development rules within the Agenda framework. This exploration is not merely about Africa’s sustainable development but is also a crucial practice for the Global South countries to secure a voice in international governance.

The particularity of marine resource development, characterised by massive capital and specialised technology needs, is not the primary barrier. From an international political science perspective, the misalignment between the long-standing, Western-dominated international relations and limited global governance systems, which still govern international cooperation, and marine development goals poses a significant challenge for many African countries. In other words, the core contradiction in marine resource development is institutional rather than factor based. Current international power distribution and rule design fail to fully address developing countries’ demands for maritime sovereignty integrity and fair marine resource revenue distribution.

From a globalisation standpoint, marine resource development has transcended the capacity of individual sovereign states, evolving into a systemic project that requires cross-regional flows of capital, technology, and institutions. As globalisation advances from commodity trade to deeper factor allocation and institutional rulemaking, blue finance’s strategic value goes beyond traditional industrial financing. It acts as an institutional bridge linking the physical needs of marine development with global capital allocation and a key hub for restructuring the global ocean governance system and order. Its core function is to drive governance rule changes through financial tool innovation, including establishing ecosystem-based development standards, improving market-based benefit distribution mechanisms, and constructing international cooperation frameworks for risk sharing.

Thus, only by strengthening ocean governance—especially in countries with incomplete decolonisation—and creating an open, cooperative, and win-win investment environment for marine development can more national, social, and industrial capital be drawn into the blue economy. This implies that the scale, progress, and scope of blue finance will hinge on global ocean governance reform under the UN framework. Only by breaking the historically entrenched power structures at the governance system level can the development potential of the blue economy be truly unleashed. This will enable sustainable marine resource development and sharing, promote higher-level global ocean governance, enhance human well-being, and foster a maritime community of shared future.

5.3 Blue Finance Breakthroughs Through Global South Cooperation

The development of Africa’s blue finance highlights that the successful implementation of the UN Agenda depends on the institutional involvement of the Global South countries, and their rule systems should be jointly formulated by these nations. In fact, collaborative cooperation among the Global South countries is crucial to releasing the potential of blue finance. The Global South cooperation has a systemic breakthrough value in realising the effectiveness of blue finance, and its core roles are as follows:

First, it is the core path to break the institutional bottlenecks in blue finance development. In the traditional North-South cooperation framework, the rule-providing model has long been dominated by developed countries. Even in the South-South cooperation mechanism, the Global South countries are often only regarded as “implementers of the Agenda” rather than equal participants in rulemaking. This has made blue finance in regions like Africa turn into a tool for solely bearing environmental responsibilities, and it has always been unable to touch the core of governance. However, the Global South cooperation, by systematically integrating the diverse demands of various countries, forms a force that challenges the existing “centre-periphery” power structure. This “bottom-up” collaborative model is expected to fundamentally change the power pattern of rulemaking.

Second, it is an ideological innovation to reshape the value dimension of blue finance. Although the current blue finance framework of the UN takes the balance between the environment and the economy as its core, practice shows that the institutional design without equal governance rights will inevitably lead to the Global South countries being forced to transfer their rights and interests in practice. The Global South cooperation needs to promote blue finance to transform towards “inclusive governance” and “equal governance”, and incorporate the coastal sovereignty and marine resource sovereignty of the Global South countries such as African countries, along with global ecological goals, into the institutional design. This innovation is not a partial repair of the existing system, but a fundamental reconstruction of the evaluation framework of blue finance from the bottom of values. It promotes blue finance to fundamentally change from “an ecological tool of developed countries” to “a development carrier of the Global South”. This process is to break through the traditional global governance model on the basis of adjusting rules and build a new financial governance paradigm that takes into account both ecological sustainability and development fairness.

Third, it is a practical path to build a multi-stakeholder governance system for blue finance. The globalisation of production and distribution, the accelerated circulation of resources and information, and the new technological revolution are profoundly changing the global development pattern and reshaping international relations. These changes bring opportunities as well as a series of new global challenges, which urgently need more inclusive governance solutions. In this context, around new problems, strengthening South-South cooperation and shaping new North-South relations still require more institutional designs and brand-new ideological changes (Yang, 2023). Modern history shows that no single country has the ability and willingness to solve global problems independently. This means that all global problems faced by humanity must be addressed through global actions, responses, and cooperation, which should become a consensus of the international community (Yang, 2023).

6. Conclusion

The practice of Africa’s blue finance within the Agenda framework reveals deep-seated contradictions in power distribution and responsibility-sharing within the global ocean governance system, while also demonstrating the potential for the Global South countries to break through institutional constraints via financial tool innovation. This study argues that unlocking the effectiveness of blue finance relies not only on cross-regional flows of capital and technology but also on reconstructing global governance rules centred on equity. This represents both a key to resolving Africa’s marine resource development dilemmas and a critical pathway for advancing the Global South participation in international rulemaking.

From a practical perspective, Africa has preliminarily established a blue finance development model aligned with the Agenda through three pathways: international cooperation, tool innovation, and industrial upgrading. Financial support from international financial institutions like the World Bank, innovative instruments such as Seychelles’ blue bonds, and the advancement of port infrastructure and renewable energy projects all validate the synergistic potential between financial tools and sustainable development goals. However, the Western-dominated rule system has trapped Africa’s blue finance in a dilemma of “ecological conservation prioritising over industrial upgrading”, exposing the structural neglect of developing countries’ needs in global governance mechanisms.

Theoretically, this study transcends the traditional blue finance framework focused on environmental-economic balance, proposing a trinity analytical paradigm integrating “livelihood security—industrial upgrading—governance equality”. It finds that the Global South cooperation is the core pathway to overcoming institutional bottlenecks: forming a “bottom-up” rule-change dynamic by integrating diverse demands can not only transform blue finance from a “developed-world ecological tool” to a “Global South development carrier” but also reconstruct a new balance mechanism between sovereign rights and global public good provision in ocean governance.

Currently, Africa’s blue finance exhibits development trends such as climate finance integration, expanded fintech applications, and private investment attraction, profoundly reflecting its strategic adaptation and innovative exploration in regional and global sustainable development. Therefore, redefining blue finance through an African lens not only accelerates Africa’s modernisation but also injects momentum into building a maritime community of shared future. Going forward, the Global South is poised to use blue finance as a breakthrough to advance global governance reform and collectively construct a human community with a shared future.

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