Notification inviting offers to host regional workshops, coordinating authors’ meetings, and writing teams’ workshops, in support of the fourth cycle of the Regular Process and its fourth World Ocean Assessment (WOA IV)

Regional workshops to inform the scoping for the fourth World Ocean Assessment, including capacity-building components

Five (five-day) regional workshops in support of the implementation of the fourth cycle of the Regular Process, including capacity-building components are expected to be held in 2026. The workshops will contribute to the scoping exercise and the development of the annotated outline for the fourth World Ocean Assessment (WOA IV). Moreover, the workshops aim to build regional capacity to engage in the assessment process. They will also collect regional-level data, raise awareness of the Regular Process, and encourage contributions from the scientific community to the drafting of the assessment.

Coordinating authors’ meetings and writing teams’ workshops

Three (three-day) coordinating author meetings will be organised, with one meeting to be held in 2028 and two meetings to be held in 2029. These meetings will facilitate the drafting of chapters and provide an opportunity for coordinating authors to strengthen coherence across the fourth World Ocean Assessment (WOA IV).
In addition, three (five-day) writing teams’ workshops, including capacity-building components, on a topic/theme to be decided by the Group of Experts, will be organised, with two sessions to be held in 2028 and one session in 2029. These workshops will serve as a platform for writing teams to engage in in-depth thematic discussions, promote knowledge sharing, and enhance capacity-building to support science-informed decision-making.

All the above-mentioned activities will cover the following five regions: 
-    The North Pacific; the South Pacific; 
-    the Indian Ocean (including the Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal), 
-    the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, and the ROPME/RECOFI area; 
-    the North Atlantic, the Baltic Sea, the Mediterranean Sea, and the Black Sea; 
-    the South Atlantic (between the African and American coasts) and the wider Caribbean.

In this regard, Member States, and members of the United Nations specialised agencies or related organisations, are invited to consider hosting or co-hosting any of the above-mentioned activities as an in-kind contribution to the Regular Process. 

Should a State be interested in hosting one of these events, please note that a Host Country Agreement between the host country and the United Nations will need to be concluded, in line with the annexes to document ST/AI/342, entitled “Guidelines for the preparation of host government agreements falling under General Assembly resolution 40/243”, as adjusted to the operational details of each event.

Any requests for information in this regard should be addressed to the Division for Ocean Affairs and the Law of the Sea of this Office (doalos@un.org), with a copy to Ms. Elena Temnova (temnova@un.org).