Sustainable Development Goal 14 in the Western Indian Ocean: a socio-ecological approach to understanding progress

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) intend to “achieve a better and more sustainable future for all people in the world” 1 . They have become a key driver for policy and decision-making in many regions, including in the Western Indian Ocean (WIO) region. This paper analyses national and regional progress towards achieving SDG 14 in the WIO. Progress of four of the SDG 14 targets that were due in 2020 are analysed. SDG 14 has influenced regional and national policy agendas but current tools to measure this progress fail to provide a detailed picture of achievement towards each target for countries in the WIO. The paper highlights that the region has shown limited success in achieving the targets and SDG 14 targets are unlikely to be reached by 2030. The WIO region lags behind with regard to marine conservation related targets. More than half of the countries have low to average progress on SDG 14.2 on marine areas being covered by area-based management tools. Even more countries are far from achieving the 10 % coverage of marine protected areas under SDG 14.5. The region is performing better with regards to fisheries management targets with most countries classified as making average to good progress towards SDG 14.4 on sustainable stocks and SDG 14.6 on addressing harmful subsidies and IUU fishing. The diversity of the socio-economic and governance contexts in the WIO countries contributes to different levels of progress. The fairly positive ecological state of the WIO supports progress towards SDG 14. Understanding barriers to progress is fundamental to help with the prioritisation of the actions needed to meet the SDG 14 targets by 2030. Regional actors and policy-makers will need to increase their ambitions to meet the SDG 14 targets and ensure a healthy ocean and improved prospects for the region and its citizens. To account for barriers in progress towards SDG 14, the WIO region needs appropriate reporting and monitoring mechanisms and it should follow a holistic regional approach of ocean governance integrating conservation and sustainable resource use. It needs to build capacity and knowledge sharing for implementation of SDG 14 and ocean governance at various levels. Improved implementation of SDG targets will have social, economic and environmental benefits within the region.


Introduction
Progress towards the achievement of the UN Sustainable Development Goal 14 (SDG 14) is important for the Western Indian Ocean (WIO) region considering the large number of coastal communities that rely on a healthy ocean for their livelihoods and food security (Obura et al., 2017). The sustainable use of ocean resources is a priority for the blue economies of WIO countries (WIOMSA, 2018). This importance was emphasized at the UN Ocean Conference of 2022, which builds upon the first Ocean Conference of 2017, and mobilised global commitments towards funding and actions for SDG 14. Globally, the progress towards achieving SDG 14 is lagging, compared to other goals (Sturesson et al., 2018;Salvia et al., 2019), and there remains a substantive funding gap ( Johansen and Vestvik, 2020). Despite progress on some of the different targets of SDG 14, none are close to being achieved (United Nations, 2019). For African countries, progress on SDG 14 is generally limited, with some instances of a decline in the indicators for sustainability (Salvia et al., 2019). This is true for some WIO countries, where challenges to achieving sustainability remain (Sachs, et al. 2019). Studies on SDG 14 have mainly focused on national achievements (Recuero Virto, 2018; Rivera-Arriaga and Azuz-Adeath, 2019; Gulseven, 2020). In the WIO region, SDG 14 has primarily been assessed from the perspectives of blue economies and fisheries.
Benzaken (2017) discusses the implementation of SDG 14 supporting the blue economy agenda of WIO countries including Kenya, Madagascar and Seychelles. She highlighted the opportunities for countries to achieve SDG 14 through activities such as marine-based tourism or energy. Obura (2020) highlighted how achieving other SDGs represent a means to progress in the implementation of SDG 14 in the WIO. He also presented a model for the assessment of the achievement of SDGs, which is based on a narrative approach, whereby explicit tangible interactions (such as the delivery of ecosystem services), can be used to measure progress, rather than measurement of progress based on indicators. Techera et al. (2020) looked at the implementation of SDG 14 from the perspective of small-scale fisheries in the Indian Ocean islands. They presented the progress made by Madagascar and Seychelles in fisheries management that can contribute towards the fisheries related targets of SDG 14. Wright et al. (2017) propose that most of the SDG14 targets can be achieved through regional initiatives that can increase ambition, learning exchanges, and coordination. They highlight that regional governance acts as a driver for the development of integrated approaches, particularly in the context of small island developing states (SIDS) and least developed countries (LDCs), of which many of the WIO states are.
Using the example of the 10 countries of the WIO (Somalia, Kenya, Tanzania, Mozambique, South Africa, Comoros, Madagascar, Seychelles, Mauritius, France -covering Réunion and Mayotte), the paper assesses the progress of four SDG 14 targets that were due in 2020 2 . The paper has three objectives: • It assesses the state of national achievements of SDG 14 in the WIO based on existing global databases that provide data of the four SDG 14 targets analysed according to the global indicator framework.
• It identifies the socio-ecological and political drivers behind success, or lack thereof, towards SDG 14 in the region. Using a socio-ecological system approach, the paper explores the common drivers and differences that drive progress nationally.
• It explores current literature to provide potential pathways towards improving achievement towards SDG 14 in the WIO region.
Current SDG 14 reporting is unreliable; in the past five years, countries of the WIO have submitted the voluntary SDG reviews on progress towards the targets sporadically or not at all (United Nations, 2022b).
Limited availability of data prevents the effective monitoring of progress. This paper provides insights into improving regional indicator use, thereby contributing to the requirement of UN member states to develop and implement national and regional indicators to complement the global indicator framework. 2 SDG 14.2: By 2020, sustainably manage and protect marine and coastal ecosystems to avoid significant adverse impacts, including by strengthening their resilience, and take action for their restoration in order to achieve healthy and productive oceans SDG 14.4: By 2020, effectively regulate harvesting and end overfishing, illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing and destructive fishing practices and implement science-based management plans, in order to restore fish stocks in the shortest time feasible, at least to levels that can produce maximum sustainable yield as determined by their biological characteristics SDG 14.5: By 2020, conserve at least 10 per cent of coastal and marine areas, consistent with national and international law and based on the best available scientific information SDG 14.6: By 2020, prohibit certain forms of fisheries subsidies which contribute to overcapacity and overfishing, eliminate subsidies that contribute to illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing and refrain from introducing new such subsidies, recognizing that appropriate and effective special and differential treatment for developing and least developed countries should be an integral part of the World Trade Organization fisheries subsidies negotiation For practitioners, this paper provides an assessment of the achievement of SDG 14 at both the national level, and regional perspective that can help target actions towards ocean sustainability and identify the needs in the WIO. This is relevant given the upcoming SDG14 review at the UN High-level Political Forum (HLPF) on the SDGs. The paper also analyses the role of socio-ecological and political drivers in achieving global goals. This can be helpful to policy makers and practitioners working on the SDGs, ocean management and blue economies in Africa. It argues that achieving the targets of SDG 14 will require the adoption of a more integrated approach when implementing policies. The ecological and socio-economic context of each country or region has significant impacts on progress and should be reflected in their policies. Social, economic and ecological impacts of policy implementation should be better integrated into decision making, monitoring and reporting associated with SDG 14.

Materials and methods
The research was based on two methods. First, pro-   Sustainability of stocks is defined as stocks with abundance that are at or greater than the level that produce the maximum sustainable yield (MSY). In 2021, less than 20 countries filled in the questionnaire related to their stocks. Considering this limitation, the reconstructed catch data produced by the Sea Around Us (Pauly et al., 2020) was used to assess SDG 14.4 as it included all the WIO countries. The Sea Around Us provides an assessment of national stocks of countries through its stock status plots database. The stocks (i.e., species, genus or family level of taxonomic assignment) assessed for each country are those that have been reported on for at least five consecutive years over a minimum of a 10-year period and for which catch is greater than 1,000 tonnes. For each EEZ, stocks are categorised as developing (catches ≤ 50 % of peak catch and year is pre-peak, or year of peak is final year of the time series); exploited (catches ≥ 50 % of peak catches); overexploited (catches between 50 % and 10 % of peak and year are post-peak); collapsed (catches < 10 % of peak and year is post-peak); and rebuilding (catches between 10 % and 50 % of peak and year is after post-peak minimum) (Kleisner and Pauly, 2011). To conduct the assessment, the percentage of developing, exploited and rebuilding stocks (exclud-   To assess the level of achievement of each of the four SDG 14 targets, a five-level classification from 'far from achievement' (class 5) to 'achieved' (class 1) was stablished. A five level scale provides a good picture of success and lack of achievement but also intermediate levels from low to good progress towards achievement. The five levels were set across the different types of scoring and level of assessment for each indicator ( Table 1).
The second method is a literature review to collect data on socio-ecological drivers of achievement and recommendations. Socio-ecological drivers were divided into five categories adapted from the 'Press-Pulse Dynamics' framework (Collins et al., 2011): ecological, socio-economic, governance, external drivers and events. Events can be press or pulse. Press events were adapted as not only ecological events but also socio-political ones that are sustained and sometimes chronic events that affect the system. Pulse events are discrete but quickly affect the socio-ecological system and its functioning (ibid). To find the relevant information, a search of papers and reports with the keywords "WIO" "governance" and "management" • The 2021 IUU Index report (Macfadyen et al., 2021): A global report on the state of IUU fishing at the global and regional levels. This report provided information on the state of IUU fishing and related challenges faced by countries and regions, including the WIO.
These documents were also complemented by general references to events and initiatives linked to the four SDG targets taking place in the WIO region.

Results and discussion
The assessment of the indicators of SDG 14 targets shows that WIO countries are still far from achieving SDG 14 (Fig. 1). Across the four targets analysed, only two targets, 14.5 and 14.6 were achieved by two countries (France and Mozambique). One country, the Seychelles, has seen good progress across all four targets. Two countries (Comoros and Somalia) show no to low progress towards achieving at least three of the targets assessed.  Note that this target can never be truly "achieved", but that the national response to combat IUU fishing at this score range appears to be broad and very solid.   will also be a pulse event, potentially fostering further marine protection through Other Effective Area-based Conservation Measures (OECMs) such as locally managed marine areas. Similarly, press events through long standing engagement and consistent political will towards marine conservation can help stimulate marine protection and the establishment of MPAs. This has been the case for the Seychelles, where leadership was committed to ocean conservation (State House, 2020). Similarly, press events such as the mobilisation of resources by the Nairobi Convention (the regional convention under the UNEP Regional Seas Programme) or production of data and knowledge through WIOMSA (the regional marine science association that functions as a network of marine scientists and as a regional Regarding the limited progress made by some countries across the four targets, an ecological look at the WIO region through the OHI, the MTI and stock data show that while marine ecosystems and biodiversity in the WIO can be considered to be at a healthy level, the high level of exploitation of fish stocks in some countries (between 30 % to 80 % of stocks being overexploited or collapsed) puts marine resources at risk.
Threats such as climate change (Cerutti et al., 2020;Jacobs et al., 2021), increasing marine pollution Kerubo et al., 2020)  Limited availability of data prevents effective monitoring of progress. This includes, for example, data regarding OECMs that could improve the coverage of marine areas protected and help achieve both SDG 14.2 and 14.5 (Gurney et al., 2021;Estradivari et al., 2022). Data on fish stocks for stock assessments is also limited. The number of available stock assessments remains limited globally and not only in the WIO region (FAO, 2020;Britten et al., 2021).
Knowledge about stocks are available through regional assessments of the FAO, regional fisheries management organisations or, as analysed in this study, from the available assessments made by the Sea Around Us project.
Some external drivers such as the difficulty to implement some targets have rendered implementation challenging, and not only for the WIO countries. However, the operationalisation of MSP is still at the development stage for most countries globally while socio-economic, institutional and political challenges have now emerged from the process (Flannery et al., 2018;Santos et al., 2019;Frazão Santos et al., 2021).
ICZM processes, on the other hand, have been in place for a long time and have presented various limitations to implementation as well (Sowman and Malan, 2018;Sabai, 2021). The same applies to Target 14.4 which aims to achieve biologically sustainable fish stocks. National capacity to undertake stock assessment is still limited (Palomares et al., 2021)

Potential ways of improving SDG 14 reporting and implementation towards achievement in the WIO
The results above represent a reality check for the region which has been the beneficiary of various projects, assessments and initiatives for many years.
Based on the most recent literature the following adjustments and improvements are suggested to the WIO region and countries.

Better appropriation of SDG 14 monitoring
To improve achievement of SDG 14, the actions taking place in the WIO, at national and regional level, need to be recorded timeously and accurately and inte-

A holistic approach towards achievement: Linking conservation and sustainable use
To achieve the goals of Agenda 2030, the region needs to increase its ambition. National and regional strategies towards improving progress towards SDG 14 should address not only the direct lack of progress, but also the root causes thereof. Increasing the coverage of marine protected areas requires a focus on establishing processes and providing resources for countries to implement and monitor the effectiveness of these marine areas Phang et al., 2020). This requires the collaboration of various stakeholders, from governments establishing policy to civil society organisations and businesses involved in implementing actions, as well as researchers providing the needed evidence for policy and decision making. The WIO has platforms such as the Science to Policy dialogue to allow this collaboration and could be mobilised towards SDG 14 achievement. Alignment of different governance and marine management processes is necessary. For example, SDGs and the CBD post-2020 biodiversity framework cover targets addressing similar issues, such as the target for marine protected areas increasing from 10 % under SDG 14.5 to 30 % under the CBD post-202 biodiversity framework target 3. Better alignment is also needed between SDG 14 targets and national and regional blue economy strategies that are burgeoning in the region. To capture all these processes, a more narrative-based approach to present achievement might be useful as it could address different SDGs (Obura, 2020) or better align blue economy strategies with SDGs needs (Niner et al., 2022).
Marine protection and fisheries management need to be addressed in a more holistic way. While the distinct fisheries and marine protection SDG 14 targets perpetuate the separation between marine protection and fisheries, reduction of marine resources through fisheries presents a real threat to the state of our oceans and its people Marsac et al., 2020). Achieving SDG 14 targets related to fisheries is therefore essential to achieve an effective marine protection. Similarly, better managed marine areas can lead to a more productive ocean that could benefit fisheries (Davis et al., 2019;Marshall et al., 2019). Monitoring these two targets and ensuring that actions address both topics have the potential to simultaneously achieve two or more SDG 14 targets and other related SDGs (e.g., SDG 2 on food security or SDG 13 on climate action). This, however, could require making trade-offs on other SDGs such as SDG 2 on poverty (Singh et al., 2018) or SDG 7 on energy (Nilsson et al., 2018) for example, by limiting fishing efforts in specific biodiversity areas (Hilborn et al., 2021) or establishing compensation funds from biodiversity loss from fisheries (Booth et al., 2021).

A tailored approach to capacity development through mutual learning
While sharing the same part of the Indian Ocean, WIO countries are socio-economically diverse. This leads to different means, resources and capabilities in Table 2. Targets, indicator, data and sources to monitor SDG 14 progress in the WIO.

SDG 14 Targets
Indicator 1 Data needed to monitor progress 2 Potential data source for the WIO both implementing SDG 14 actions and monitoring progress towards achievement. Some countries are advancing well in achieving SDG 14 and others are still struggling. Existing and future efforts in capacity development, from a regional perspective, need to consider the different needs in the region and tailor the actions needed towards SDG 14 accordingly.
As regional initiatives such as the WIO Great Blue Wall (IUCN, 2021) and global funding such as from the Blue Action Fund (Blue Action Fund, 2022) continue to flow in the WIO, these need to look at the diverse and distinct needs of the WIO countries. • Second is the countries that are still far from achievement such as Comoros 10 or Somalia.
These countries require capacity development at both implementation and monitoring levels. For implementation, as seen in the implementation of other global goals such as the CBD Aichi targets, capacity is needed at different levels from local community groups to national NGOs, governments and research entities that are often underfunded and understaffed leading to limited means available to implement actions UNEP-Nairobi Convention and WIOMSA, 2021). Here, investment in capacity development is needed in key processes, such as raising and maintaining financial capacity for MPAs and OECMs or increasing human resources capacity in the fight against IUU fishing. In terms of monitoring, capacity development in data production and collection remains paramount. Processes such as stock assessments or MSP are at the centre of SDG 14 and will require countries and initiatives in the region to invest in improving national capacity through supporting training. 10 At the time of the revision of this paper, Comoros made the decision to expand its MPA network with three more sites, not accounted yet within the WDPA.
• The third set of countries, representing more than half of the WIO, are countries that have been classified as making low to average progress, depending on the targets. For these countries, targeted actions will be needed in terms of implementation and monitoring of progress. While quantified targets can be useful to ensure robustness (Maron et al., 2021), few countries globally achieve them -for example, biodiversity targets (Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity, 2020). A more qualitative or narrative-based approach towards progress, as suggested by some authors (Rees et al., 2018;Obura, 2020)  such as improving monitoring, control and surveillance capacity. To coordinate these efforts, regional cooperation on ocean governance will be essential: countries making progress or those that have achieved the targets can share best practices with others and help pave the way for more SDG 14 progress in the region. Countries with average progress need to be more supported in their existing efforts.
Countries far from achievement are highlighted so they can get more support from the region and the international community. This support should not be geared towards rushed achievement but better structured towards long-term improvement in all aspects of fisheries management.

A cross-scale intervention for inclusion and social equity
SDG 14 provides a framework for more ocean actions or more visibility of actions undertaken in the region. Implementation of SDG 14 requires action across scales from the local managers of marine areas or fishers to the governments and those involved in regional processes. As the pressure on governments towards ocean action increases, it is essential that local actors, that are most affected by the management of the WIO and its resources, remain at the centre of processes.
Inclusion and social equity need to drive the achievement of SDG 14 in both implementation and monitoring of achievement. Involvement of local stakeholders needs to go beyond participation at meetings or being beneficiaries of projects. It should ensure that local views are taken into consideration and integrated into decision-making. Processes such as MSP, for example, can be a source of conflict when, despite participation local actors feel that their views are not reflected into the outcome of the process (Flannery et al., 2018;Schutter and Hicks, 2019).
As various independent assessments are being undertaken, countries and stakeholders need to be fully engaged in the process of measuring progress rather than only being data providers. A fully engaged co-production of knowledge is necessary and can pave the way for positive and equitable socio-ecological transformation (Ertör and Hadjimichael, 2020;Chambers et al., 2021). Achieving SDG 14 needs be seen as an opportunity for stakeholders to have dialogues and debates on how to best advance towards a sustainable ocean. The integration of SDG14 in the development of blue economy agendas in the WIO should result in a more inclusive process and enhance blue justice (Bennett, 2018;Armstrong, 2020), creating an opportunity for the region to be a model for the rest of the world.

Conclusion
The SDGs represent the global framework for sustainable development until 2030 and potentially beyond that. As more than five years have now passed since the adoption of SDG 14, this paper reflects on implementation, monitoring and potential ways to achieve the SDG 14 targets for the WIO region. Countries of the WIO have made limited progress towards the four targets of SDG 14 analysed in this paper. Countries have struggled to achieve targets related to marine protection and area-based management (SDG 14.2 and 14.5) while progress towards fisheries related targets (SDG 14.4 and 14.6) has been more encouraging with more countries making good progress. Considering the various active projects and initiatives taking place in the region, this shows that either current efforts have been insufficient to achieve the global targets or that the region has not managed to convert its successes into the achievement of the SDG 14 targets. The paper shows the national challenges in achieving SDG 14 and how knowledge around the SDGs could be improved beyond global indicators. To achieve SDG 14, the WIO region needs to improve the monitoring of progress towards SDG 14 targets by mobilising existing data but also by potentially adapting the monitoring process to fit the diverse contexts in the WIO. In parallel to this, countries of the WIO could adapt the framework of SDG 14 targets to direct actions towards a more comprehensive approach -linking conservation and sustainable use, fostering mutual learning and ensuring inclusivity and equity in decision and policy making.
As we have entered the UN Decade of Ocean Science for sustainable development that promotes science towards SDG 14, the WIO region is ideally equipped with its lively community of governments, practitioners and researchers to be a model towards SDG 14 achievement tailored to the needs and capabilities of the region.