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West Africa has an extensive coastline stretching 7,367 km over 12 mainland countries and two archipelagos. The region’s coastal and marine ecosystems are among the most productive and biologically diverse in the world. However, the ocean resources are under intense anthropogenic pressures encompassing pollution, habitat degradation, biodiversity loss, overfishing, and climate-change-​induced sea level rise. These challenges call for science-based and community-led actions to reverse current negative trends. Unfortunately, poor capacity to understand West Africa’s ocean is an age-old struggle by scientists in the region, and it remains among the least studied globally. 

The Ocean Foundation’s Ocean Science Equity Initiative—EquiSea—was founded in 2022 to address systemic inequities in ocean science capacity and opportunities. It provides financial support for projects, coordinates capacity development activities, fosters collaboration and co-financing of ocean science, and supports the development of low-cost ocean science technologies. The EquiSea strategic framework was co-developed with input from more than 200 ocean science practitioners in more than 35 countries. The authors of this article are those who played the most active roles in EquiSea’s development. 

The challenges facing the ocean and its resources have become increasingly complex and transboundary, requiring coordinated efforts for effective management and sustainable use. However, this coordination is currently hindered by the uneven distribution of capacity and equipment, particularly in developing regions. This article discusses project-based learning (PBL) as a pathway to transferring and sharing capacity in global ocean sciences. It highlights a successful PBL program, as well as challenges encountered and lessons learned. Addressing these obstacles is crucial for ensuring equity in solving issues that impact the ocean. 

The Coastal Ocean Environment Summer School In Nigeria and Ghana (COESSING; https://coessing.org) has been run for one week every year since 2015. The school, an endorsed project of the United Nations Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development (2021–2030), has provided a platform for approximately 1,000 scientists from Africa, the United States, and Europe to exchange scientific knowledge, to network, to learn, and to collaborate. Our interdisciplinary, multicultural, and multi-institutional approach offers a model for knowledge exchange across the globe and across different educational levels. 

AbstractOceanography is by nature a global science, and thus requires a global trained workforce. Yet in many coastal nations, the number of trained professionals working in ocean science fields is lacking. Global Ocean Corps and Conveyor (GOCC), an endorsed capacity development programme of the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development, aims to increase the geographical and cultural diversity of the ocean science workforce through facilitating and building sustained long-term education and research collaborations between scientists around the globe. Based upon our collective experience with schools and workshops held in Ghana, Malaysia, University of Rhode Island Coastal Resources Center, and elsewhere, we are confident that a well-funded Ocean Corps would inspire large numbers of scientists, especially early-career scientists, into its ranks, thus molding many of them into champions for international capacity development for the remainder of their careers, and fostering truly global ocean science collaborations worldwide.