Yet, several systemic barriers exist that prevent sustainable blue economic activities and sectors from accessing the financing they need to grow and realize this potential.

A lack of technical support and investor confidence make it challenging for coastal communities to access the seed funding needed to scale their blue businesses. At the same time, national policies often fall short in creating an enabling environment for blue economies that are sustainable and inclusive.

The WWF-commissioned report “Assessing Financial Flows within the South West Indian Ocean Blue Economy” shows that financial institutions fail to sufficiently consider environmental, social and governance risks when making loan and investment decisions.

The study found that 78% of investments and 70% of loans approved between 2017 and 2023 went to the energy and resources sector. These results indicate that most financing in the region favours large-scale ocean ventures that pose environmental risks and can harm the livelihoods of coastal communities. Moreover, national financial regulators are not doing enough to ensure that these institutions make responsible financing and investment choices.

We aim to create an enabling environment for a sustainable blue economy by “blue-ing” finance.

WWF engages financial institutions, financial regulators and central banks to encourage them to adopt and uphold UNEP Finance Initiative’s Sustainable Blue Economy Finance Principles, a framework that aims to orient global financial flows for an inclusive, sustainable blue economy.

WWF is also engages civil society as important partners in creating pressure for change in the region’s financial systems.

We support the sustainable blue economy by developing mechanisms to finance sustainable and inclusive local blue enterprises.

WWF works across the region to establish village savings and loan associations (VSLAs) that both improve community resilience in the face of climate disasters and can serve as a financing vehicle to support the establishment of small-scale alternative livelihood activities such as seaweed farming, beekeeping and ecotourism enterprises.

Building on these efforts WWF, in collaboration with the SWIO Venture Builder multistakeholder platform, provides further technical and financial support to enable community-led enterprises align with sustainable blue business models and reach investment-readiness.

WWF also collaborates with financial institutions, corporations and investors to design innovative financing vehicles for bankable blue enterprises.


An example of this is the Marine and Community Resilience Fund (MCRF) – a hybrid investment vehicle that WWF designed for Madagascar’s Diana seascape to balance impact and financial risk by funding both mangrove conservation and sustainable blue enterprises.​

For more information on how WWF is delivering impact in the Diana seascape by financing blue, see SCALING DEEP: The SWIO Venture Builder, a chapter in the WWF-SWIO Impact Stories.

We advocate for blue economy policies that deliver sustainable development.

WWF engages and supports governments in directing the growth of their blue economies towards sustainable pathways by transforming sectors that drive nature loss, such as marine infrastructure and deep-seabed mining.

This work includes helping countries develop national blue economy policies and plans that align with sustainability and inclusivity principles, and building capacity among officials to assess the sustainability potential – and monitor the implementation – of sustainable blue economy policies.