IOCARIBE of IOC UNESCO organized a Western Tropical Atlantic (WTA-Ocean Decade) virtual meeting on April 28-29, 2020 to address the science priorities and capacity goals, in consultation with the many leading UN, NGO, science and private sector, indigenous and local communities and other stakeholders of the Wider Caribbean Region.

As part of the IOCARIBE coordination mechanism for the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development (2021-2030), a Regional Planning Group was established to advance and coordinate strategic partnerships and actions for the engagement in the Ocean Decade. The initial regional scope for the for Western Tropical Atlantic was extended to the East Tropical Pacific to finally merge on the Tropical Atlantic and Caribbean Region, embracing both basins, for consistency, physical and ecosystem similarity and geopolitical situation.

With the coordination of IOCARIBE, partners UN and Regional Agencies, and financial support from NORAD and UCAR, a series of seven virtual workshops were organized to be conducted during July – September 2021, at a technical and conceptual basis.

A Kick-off TAC Regional Conference (16-17 December 2021), with the auspices of the Government of Colombia and Barbados, marked the launch of the UN Ocean Decade in the Tropical Americas Caribbean, and represent the beginning of the region-wide efforts in a substantive development and implementation of Decade Actions.
Following the work of Regional Planning Group a drafting of regional Decade proposals to address the regional challenges identified during the TAC Regional Kick-Off Conference (16-17 December 2021) and the WTA Regional Workshops’ series (April-September 2021), were submitted to the Ocean Decade call for Action 02/2021.

The identified actions are based on the results gathered from the recent reports, and on-going activities of UN Agencies/Programmes and Regional entities, the available information from WTA Regional Workshops and the breakout sessions held during the TAC Regional Kick-Off Conference.