Program Overview
Actions on land directly affect ocean health. The GEF-8 Clean and Healthy Ocean Integrated Program (CHO-IP) takes a source-to-sea approach to address nutrient-driven marine hypoxia where it starts. The program addresses the entire continuum—from farms, cities, and industries, through rivers and coastal zones, to Large Marine Ecosystems (LMEs)—ensuring that upstream interventions deliver measurable benefits downstream.
Led by the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations (FAO), Asian Development Bank (ADB), Development Bank of Latin America and the Caribbean (CAF) and European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and implemented in partnership with Conservation International (CI), Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the World Bank (IBRD), the CHO-IP mobilizes over USD 109 million in GEF financing and USD 821 million in co-financing. The program contributes to sustainable blue economies while generating ecological, social, and economic benefits for across 13 countries and 11 LMEs.
The Global Coordination Project
The Global Coordination Project (GCP) of the GEF-8 Clean and Healthy Ocean Integrated Program (CHO-IP) enhances the effectiveness, coherence, and impact of the overall program by supporting 13 country projects working to address nutrient-driven marine hypoxia through a source-to-sea approach. The GCP strengthens collaboration across the continuum from farms, cities, and industries to rivers, coastal zones, and Large Marine Ecosystems (LMEs), ensuring that national interventions generate lasting regional and global benefits.
Country Projects
The Clean and Healthy Oceans Integrated Program (CHO-IP) engages thirteen countries (Grenada, Madagascar, Maldives, Mexico, Moldova, Panama, Peru, Sri Lanka, St. Kitts and Nevis, Thailand, Trinidad and Tobago, Venezuela, Vietnam), representing nine Large Marine Ecosystems (LMEs). Each Country Project contributes to the overall goals of the program and advances solutions to address fundamental barriers through a complimentary set of components, outputs, and activities adapted to local conditions and targeting national priorities.
Portfolio-wide Environmental Outcomes
The portfolio is expected to restore more than 93 000 ha of ecosystems, place over 1.3 million ha of landscapes and 10.5 million ha of marine habitat under improved practices, improve management across more than 311 000 ha of terrestrial protected areas and 414 000 marine protected areas, mitigate approximately 9.6 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent, and directly benefit nearly 526 000 people while strengthening regional and global cooperation on ocean health. The 11 LMEs benefitting from enhanced cooperation thought CHO-IP are:
- South China Sea (Viet Nam)
- Caribbean Sea LME (Venezuela, Grenada, St. Kitts and Nevis, Trinidad and Tobago)
- Bay of Bengal LME (Sri Lanka, Maldives)
- Pacific Central American Coastal LME (Panama, Mexico)
- Gulf of Thailand LME (Thailand)
- Gulf of Mexico LME (Mexico)
- California Current LME (Mexico)
- Black Sea LME (Moldova)
- Humboldt Current LME (Peru)
- Agulhas Current LME (Madagascar)
- Mediterranean Sea (Global Coordination Project)
CHO-IP Country Projects and Benefiting LMEs
