On 1 December 2020, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) approved the technical assistance (TA) on Marine Aquaculture, Reefs, Renewable Energy, and Ecotourism for Ecosystem Services (MARES). The TA aims to encourage development and facilitate future investment in the ocean sectors such as mariculture, marine renewable energy, cultivated reefs, and marine ecotourism. Since its inception, the MARES TA has organized several webinars and briefs as well as project examples that are compiled in the ADB Data Room. It has also produced a handbook on The Ocean Energy Economy which can be used as a tool to help ADB’s developing member countries (DMCs) identify the optimal marine renewable energy technology that is most suitable to them given their climate, environment, and existing national policy and strategy. Another key output of the TA is the extensive research on marine renewable energy undertaken in two large ocean States: Palau and the Republic of Marshall Islands. Similarly, scoping studies were recently conducted in the two islands in the Philippines to demonstrate the economic benefits of the MARES approach.

The MARES workshop is being organized as a part of the culminating activity of the TA. The event will highlight the key learnings and findings of MARES and how it will fit into the ADB’s Blue Economy going forward. The workshop will also present the results of two scoping studies done in the Philippines and the launch of the ADB publication “The Ocean-Energy Economy: A Multifunctional Approach.”