For centuries, the ocean was a frontier — a boundary beyond which the world became uncertain. Today, that frontier has become the center of gravity for all the tensions that define our era.

Submarine cables carrying 95% of global internet traffic are being sabotaged. Trade routes through which 90% of the planet’s goods transit are contested, rerouted, militarized. The seabed has become a new Eldorado quietly divided among major powers. The Mediterranean — that stretch of sea we see from Monaco — alone concentrates 30% of global maritime traffic within just 1% of the world’s waters. It mirrors everything the world produces in terms of conflict, ambition, and fear.

But the sea is also — and perhaps above all — a promise.

It provides protein to more than 3 billion people. It absorbs 25% of the CO₂ we emit and regulates the climate of the entire planet. It hosts a biodiversity of which we have explored only 20%, and marine biotechnologies are only beginning to reveal its pharmaceutical, nutritional, and industrial potential. Its economy now weighs several billion dollars per year — and could double by 2030.

Facing the sea and the oceans head-on

Less than 1% of climate finance today is directed toward the oceans. Blue finance tools — blue bonds, marine insurance, funds dedicated to coastal ecosystems — exist but remain marginal, sometimes poorly calibrated or insufficiently standardized. And yet, the sea is a strategic asset for many countries, including France, which thanks to its overseas territories possesses the world’s second-largest maritime space. In developing countries, the sea is often the primary resource: it represents 300 billion dollars per year on the African continent alone — a reservoir of jobs, protein, and food sovereignty that well‑targeted investments could multiply.

In November 2026, the CICA will gather its members in Monaco — the world capital of the sea — bringing together actors in agricultural and food financing for a simple reason: what we do with agricultural land and food systems can no longer be thought of without considering what we do — or fail to do — with the oceans.

The sea is at once a cradle of life, an artery of global trade, a geopolitical sovereignty issue, and a refuge for sustainability. It is the common thread running through all the crises — food, climate, strategic — that our institutions finance or seek to prevent.

For two days, geostrategists, marine scientists, blue‑economy entrepreneurs, and banking leaders will exchange ideas so that the financing decisions made today determine what the sea will be in 2050 — and with it, the food security of billions of human beings.