Pafos Live 17 April 2024
The Ministerial Meeting on the Oceans of the Commonwealth States takes place on Friday in Kouklia under the theme "Our resilient common ocean: from Cyprus to Samoa".
According to organisers, the meeting will be attended by Government Ministers and senior officials from the Commonwealth member states. Commonwealth Ministers responsible for ocean affairs will meet to define the principles, priorities and actions for a Commonwealth Ocean Declaration and agree a roadmap that will pave the way for the adoption of the Declaration at CHOGM 2024 in Samoa.
The Ministerial Meeting will take place at a hotel in Kouklia, Aphrodite Hills, and will be preceded on 18 April by a meeting of senior officials of the Commonwealth states, as a preparatory meeting of the Ministerial Meeting.
The opening reception will take place on April 18 and the next day will be followed by the official opening of the Summit with greetings and speeches. A press conference will be held after the end of the Summit.
One-fifth of all seaborne trade and one-fifth of seaports are located within the Commonwealth. 49 of the Commonwealth's 56 member countries border the ocean, home to 47% of the world's coral reefs and 34% of mangrove forests. One-third of the world's marine waters are within national jurisdiction.
25 of the Commonwealth's 33 small states are small island developing states (SIDS) or "large ocean states", i.e. two-thirds of the global total.
