Professor Amr Zakaria Hamouda, Vice Chairman of the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission of UNESCO (IOC), Professor Affian Kouadio, Chairman of the Sub-Committee for African and Neighboring Island Countries of IOC (African Committee) and other experts from relevant institutions and project scientific guidance experts of the countries jointly building the Belt and Road attended the meeting.

At the opening ceremony, Deputy Director Chen Jianfang delivered a speech on behalf of the supporting units of the project, and Professor Affian Kouadio, Chairman of the African Committee, made a special invited speech, pointing out the important scientific significance of the MoNITOR project and placing great hopes on the international cooperation in the field of marine ecological environment promoted by the implementation of the project.

The MoNITOR project is organized and implemented under the leadership of Researcher Wang Yuntao of the SIO, and is jointly attended by more than 30 universities, research institutes from more than 10 countries and international organizations. It is an important component of the big science project of “Sustainability, Predictability and Recoverability of Marine Ecosystem (SUPREME)”, which aims to improve the offshore observation capacity of countries jointly building the Belt and Road, develop the prediction model of marine ecological dynamic environment, and serve the needs of marine ecological health and sustainable development.

At the meeting, Researcher Wang Yuntao comprehensively introduced the overall framework and research content of the MoNITOR project, and held the appointment ceremony of scientific guidance experts; Professor Suzan El-Gharabawy, Vice Chairman of the African Committee, Yu Rencheng, Researcher of the Institute of Oceanography, Chinese Academy of Sciences, and Liu Yang, Professor of the Ocean University of China, made a keynote report on the prospect of project cooperation, deeply expressing their willingness to cooperate through the MONITOR project; Professor He Ding from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, as the head of co-leading project implementation agencies, presided over the exchange and discussion, and the participating experts put forward suggestions and prospects for the implementation of the project.

The Ocean Decade is currently the most important global marine science initiative, which aims to provide scientific solutions for global ocean governance, seek the knowledge needed for sustainable development, enhance the understanding of marine environmental characteristics, strengthen the utilization of marine knowledge, and cooperate to realize the sustainable development of the ocean centering on the vision of “the science I need and the ocean I expect”.