As part of the MSPglobal pilot project in the Southeast Pacific, a national training course on Marine Spatial Planning (MSP) and Sustainable Blue Economy is organized in Panama City (Panama), one of the member states of the CPPS Plan of Action for the Protection of the Marine Environment and Coastal Areas. This training course (“Curso de capacitación sobre la Planificación Espacial Marina en el ámbito de la Economía Azul Sostenible”) is organized jointly with the SPINCAM Project.

It will cover:

• Presentation of the current situation of the national marine and coastal zones;
• Introduction to the concepts of MSP and Sustainable Blue Economy;
• Data and information in MSP processes;
• Stakeholder engagement in MSP processes, from beginning to end.

The overall objective of the training is to increase the participants’ institutional and technical capacities to respond to challenges in coastal and marine environments and find practical solutions through MSP and Sustainable Blue Economy.

In the context of MSPglobal and with the support of the Government of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, the MSP Challenge game will be used to simulate a planning process, during which participants will be asked to define their country’s vision, objectives, indicators, actions, stakeholders and risks for short and long-term.

A half-day will be dedicated to visiting local stakeholders in the area.

MSPglobal is a joint initiative by the IOC-UNESCO and Directorate-General for Maritime Affairs and Fisheries (DG MARE), co-financed by the European Commission’s European Maritime and Fisheries Fund.