As the international community prepares for the 2025 UN Ocean Conference (9 – 13 June 2025, Nice) – co-hosted by France and Costa Rica under the theme “Accelerating action and mobilising all actors to conserve and sustainably use the ocean” – this blog explores how digital innovations can play a key role in accelerating ocean climate action.
In late 2024, we conducted an analysis examining the role of mobile and digital innovations in advancing a sustainable blue economy (SBE) in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). At the core of this is the Blue Tech Heatmap, which analysed 148 digital innovations across Southeast Asia, Latin America, the Caribbean, Small Island Developing States (SIDS) and East Africa. The heatmap provides a data-driven snapshot of how technologies are enabling these nations to deliver on the twin mandate of protecting ocean ecosystems while advancing low carbon economic development.
Figure 1: Blue Tech Heatmap
Digital hotspots driving a sustainable blue economy
Findings from the heatmap indicate that even though digital innovation in the blue economy is accelerating, adoption remains uneven across sectors and regions. Our findings show that:
- Fisheries and aquaculture sectors dominate (~40% of the total mapped innovations) with digital platforms/ marketplaces, and mobile applications combined with sensors and IoT technology enabling unprecedented opportunities for traceability, monitoring and resource management.
- Blue carbon and ecosystem resilience sector (~20% of the total mapped innovations) heavily leverages location data, GIS and spatial mapping technologies, yet it remains underutilised in adjacent sectors
- Southeast Asia leads regional adoption (~40% of the total mapped innovations), with Indonesia standing out as a major hub – accounting for nearly half of the examples we identified in the region. India and Kenya anchor progress in the South Asian and East African regions respectively corresponding to their mature technology landscapes. Barbados leads innovation among Caribbean countries despite facing high costs of technology coupled with a lack of digital infrastructure.
Figure 2: Distribution of innovations in the SBE sectors by region
Barriers to scale
Despite strong momentum, our research also highlighted five systemic barriers limiting the scale and impact of digital solutions:
- Lack of awareness of the role of digital solutions among blue economy stakeholders: Many blue economy stakeholders remain unfamiliar with the benefits of digital tools and the impact of digital innovations, slowing uptake.
- Caution among investors due to un-tested commercial models of digital solutions: Despite growing funding being directed to the sector, investors question the commercial viability of nascent use cases in the sector.
- Lack of recognition and promotion of digital solutions in blue economy regulations: While tech solutions offer great promise, a sustainable and thriving blue economy requires significant policy reforms. Regulatory frameworks in LMICs often fall short, struggling to keep pace with rapid technological change, and to effectively incentivise technology adoption and innovation through government policy. This regulatory lag is particularly severe in SIDS where slow policy cycles hinder the growth of digital industries. Fragmented and overlapping national regulations further complicate efforts to coordinate and implement effective policies.
- Lack of data sharing policies: The absence of robust data sharing frameworks creates information silos between academia, civil society organisations, private sector, and public sector beyond specific project timelines.
- Connectivity gap, limited technical capacity and digital literacy of users, particularly in SIDS: Limited infrastructure and technical expertise, particularly in remote coastal communities and SIDS, restrict the effective deployment of digital solutions.
Proof of concept: The GSMA Innovation Fund for Climate Resilience and Adaptation
The GSMA Innovation Fund for Climate Resilience and Adaptation, accelerates the testing, adoption and scalability of digital innovations through its grant funding. Here are three startups from our portfolio making strides in the sustainable blue economy space:
HydroNeo (Thailand) integrates smart technology, such as aquaculture monitoring automation, weather warning and disease detection, into farms, resulting in energy savings, improved productivity and profitability for farmers.
Simusolar (Tanzania) supports fishers in securing livelihoods, adapting to weather changes and sustaining fisheries management through IoT-enabled productivity and activity tracking equipment.
InQube (India) enhances smallholder farmers’ incomes through farm decision support, supply chain enablement and regenerative farm practices through a service technology (SaaS) platform. The InQube platform will contribute to a carbon offset financing project for mangrove reforestation with digital tracking, enhancing financial support for farmers by 2027.
An action plan for Nice
As the UN Ocean Conference approaches, four digital priorities emerge from our study to accelerate the trends and challenge the barriers outlined above:
- Address awareness gaps: Overcome awareness gaps through curated success stories and rigorous impact assessments of emerging use cases.
- Create regulatory sandboxes: De-risk investment with secure and stable policy environment to solve for deterrence due to policy fragmentation.
- Prioritise digital connectivity in SIDS: Create an enabling environment for digital infrastructure providers to enable SIDS to benefit from essential digital innovations that drive climate resilience.
- Advocate for data sharing policies: Advocate for regional data coordination for data-led decision making and provide common measurement systems for SIDS.
Connect with GSMA Mobile for Development at the 2025 UN Ocean Conference
Leila Guici from the GSMA ClimateTech team will be at the 2025 UN Ocean Conference to share insights and learn more about how innovative digital and technology solutions can have a positive impact on coastal communities and marine ecosystems. Please get in touch with us if your work has strong synergies with our objective to promote digital technologies in accelerating climate action for a sustainable blue economy. We are really excited to deepen our work in this area over the coming years.
The ClimateTech programme is currently funded by UK International Development from the UK government and the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida), and is supported by the GSMA and its members.
