Photo: The Ocean Agency / Ocean Image Bank

International
Platform
for Ocean
Sustainability

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IPOS:
Why and How?

The ocean is essential to all life on Earth, and right now, it’s in a state of crisis.

Despite ambitious global targets, ocean health is deteriorating, and significant gaps remain in the implementation of our commitments. It is critical that we overcome fragmentation of ocean knowledge to provide operational policy options and ensure a healthy future for our ocean and all life that relies on it.

Translating actionable knowledge into policy options for transformative global impact

IPOS is an innovative, demand-driven global platform connecting diverse expertise and experience, supporting States in accelerating the implementation of their international ocean commitments. The platform delivers inclusive, tailored, and actionable implementation pathways in response to urgent needs, to integrate knowledge, inform policy decisions, and to support sustainable ocean action and accelerate meeting our goals for ocean impact.

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Delivering rapid, robust, and inclusive implementation pathways

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Synthesize diverse knowledge to co-develop policy options within one year in response to requests from States or groups of States, through dynamic exchanges between requesters and relevant experts.

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Provide knowledge outputs within a few weeks, supported by a dedicated artificial intelligence tool, IPOSGPT, based on a carefully curated scientific literature, with results subject to peer review and compliant with an ethical code of best practices for artificial intelligence.

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Facilitate exchanges among diverse non-state actors on ocean policy solutions, obstacles to their implementation, and emerging priorities.

Photo: Swati Thiyagarajan - Sea Change Project

Testing and refining IPOS processes and structures

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Officially launched at the 2025 United Nations Ocean Conference (UNOC3), IPOS has entered a pilot phase to test and refine its support, methodologies, and proposed governance structures. This 24-month period will allow support processes to be refined in several pilot regions and ensure their adaptability based on the results obtained before expansion to other regions.

Follow along with IPOS’s progress or contact us to get involved in our work:

Contact IPOS
Visit the IPOS site
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Photo: Sergio Izquierdo / Ocean Image Bank

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Photo: Emilie Ledwidge / Ocean Image Bank

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Photo: OceanX

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A man stands in front of a green wall with logos of IPBES, UN environment programme, UNESCO, and FAO. There is a colorful illustration of a bird on the wall. The man is wearing glasses, a black jacket, and a lanyard.
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Accelerating action for a sustainable ocean future