BACKGROUND IUCN’s Global Protected Areas Programme (GPAP) is expanding its work on marine protected areas (MPAs) knowledge sharing and capacity building through a number of new projects, in particular an extension of the Blue Solutions project collaboration. Blue Solutions is a global project funded by the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety (BMU) under its International Climate Initiative (IKI). It is jointly implemented by Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) as the lead with the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), GRID-Arendal, and the United Nations Environment Programme (UN Environment). The project focuses on developing and setting up a global platform for exchanging and disseminating kno