Ocean Risk And Resilience Action Alliance

Our ocean is changing faster than at any time in human history, with wide-ranging implications for coastal infrastructure, biodiversity and the lives and livelihoods of billions of people. Coastal communities in developing countries, Small Island Developing States (SIDS) and other low-lying areas are likely to be most severely impacted, with women and girls especially hard-hit. By 2050, an estimated 800 million people will be at risk from storm surge from extreme weather events, and over 570 low-lying coastal cities will face sea level rise of at least 0.5 metres. There are many perceived barriers to investing in nature-based solutions for coastal protection. These include a lack of understanding of how investing in natural capital can provide a timely and productive return, and insufficient data and modelling capabilities for investors to quantify ocean-derived risk. There is a huge opportunity to develop pioneering finance and insurance products that reduce ocean risk and build the resilience of coastal areas to emerging hazards. The United Nations has called on the finance and insurance industries to respond to these challenges. The Ocean Risk and Resilience Action Alliance (ORRAA) is a multi-sector collaboration designed to drive $500 million into ground-breaking finance products by 2030 that invest in coastal natural capital. In so doing, it will incentivize blended finance and private investment into the regions and communities that need it most. ORRAA aims to surface at least 15 novel finance products by 2025 to build the foundation of this new marketplace. To help reach this goal, ORRAA is launching its Ocean Resilience Innovation Challenge to identify and nurture a pipeline of up to 10 finance and insurance innovations.