Closing the Loop Between Grants and Private Capital in the Blue Economy

As global ocean leaders gathered in Mombasa this week for the 11th Our Ocean Conference, Kenya’s coast became more than a venue. It became a reminder that ocean ambition is tested closest to the shore.

The theme, Our Ocean, Our Heritage, Our Future, spoke to something coastal communities already know well: the ocean is not only a space of biodiversity and climate action. It is also work, food, risk, culture and income.

At the coast, the blue economy is not abstract. It is the fisher waking before sunrise, hoping the catch will be enough. It is the woman drying seaweed, waiting for a buyer. It is the small trader wondering whether one bad season can wipe out profit.

So when people speak about the blue economy, coastal communities ask a simple question: will this help me earn more, sell more and carry less risk?

That matters because Kenya’s financing reality is changing. As a lower-middle-income country, traditional grants are becoming harder to access. Yet fisherfolk still need boats, gear and cold storage. Seaweed farmers need seedlings, ropes and buyers. Small enterprises need working capital.

Private finance must play a bigger role. But if it comes in wrongly, it can leave communities with debt instead of opportunity. The question is how to bring banks and investors in without leaving producers carrying the risk.

This recently sat at the centre of discussions under a UN Kenya Joint Programme funded by the High Commission of Canada. Implemented by FAO, UNIDO, UN Women and UNEP, the Programme focuses on seaweed as entry point.

Demand is there, but the system is not ready

Seaweed tells the story clearly. The problem is not demand. Buyers exist in food, cosmetics, animal feed, bio-stimulants and industrial products.

The problem is the system around the producer. Many farmers operate on small ocean plots. Cooperatives are still growing. Drying, storage, quality control and aggregation remain weak. Without reliable volumes and buyer contracts, lenders struggle.

Training matters, but a farmer cannot repay a loan with a training certificate. Production must connect to a buyer. The buyer must pay. Income must reach the farmer and be enough to keep producing. That is what it means to close the loop between production, markets and finance.

From grants to affordable finance

“We are looking for viable commercial incentives and development outcomes and how the two can reinforce each other,” says Elisha Ogonji from the High Commission of Canada in Kenya.

Grants still matter. They have helped train communities, organise women’s groups, provide equipment and test new ideas. Without grants, many blue economy activities would never have started. But grants were never meant to carry a sector forever.

At some point, a project has to become commerce. A trained farmer becomes a producer. A cooperative becomes a supplier. A buyer enters. Money flows back to the people doing the work.

This is where the role of the UN is also changing. It is helping Kenya build the bridge between community production and real markets by organising producers, strengthening cooperatives, improving records, supporting aggregation and bringing offtakers in early.

A buyer ready to purchase seaweed gives farmers confidence to produce, gives cooperatives a reason to aggregate and gives lenders something to finance.

That is where grants can start doing a different job. Instead of only funding activities, grants can prepare communities for affordable finance. They can organise the sector, reduce risk, strengthen cooperatives and unlock lending that would otherwise be too expensive or unavailable.

The aim is not to push fisherfolk and seaweed farmers into ordinary debt. That would be dangerous. The aim is to turn early-stage support into affordable loans while cushioning producers.

Banks do not lend to disorder. They lend where they can see structure, governance, volume, buyers and a clear repayment path. One seaweed farmer may be difficult to finance. A cooperative supplying an offtaker through a purchase agreement looks very different.

Even then, finance must be affordable. A fisherfolk-targeted SACCO product in Kenya has charged about 12 percent a year. Wider commercial bank lending rates are around 14.69 percent, while some microfinance products quote about 21 percent. For producers with seasonal income and thin margins, that cost matters.

The question is not simply how to give communities access to debt. The better question is: how do we make finance affordable, safe and useful enough for producers to grow?

This is where guarantees and interest subsidies come in. A guarantee cushions the lender and helps it say yes. But it does not automatically make the loan cheaper for the farmer. An interest subsidy lowers the cost of borrowing, helping the producer keep enough income to continue farming and reinvest.

Put simply: a guarantee helps the bank say yes; an interest subsidy helps the farmer benefit from that yes!

The big shift is sharing risk

“Ongoing discussions are focused on turning this model into practice, structuring blended finance solutions, deploying guarantees, and designing loans aligned with real value chains and cash flows. The goal is to support growth without overburdening producers,” notes Titus Osewe from Rabo Foundation.

The next task is turning this model into practice: blended finance, guarantees and loans aligned with real value chains and cash flows, without overburdening producers.

For too long, too much risk has sat with the fisher, the seaweed farmer, the women’s group or the small coastal enterprise. If production fails, prices fall, climate shocks reduce yields or the buyer disappears, they suffer. If the loan is too expensive, they still suffer.

That is not a fair way to build the blue economy.

A better model shares risk across the whole value chain. Government secures productive ocean space and creates the right rules. The UN helps organise producers and prepare the sector for commerce. Lenders provide finance. Guarantors absorb part of the downside risk. Interest subsidies make loans more affordable. Cooperatives manage aggregation and quality. Farmers and fisherfolk produce.

Regulation is part of this. Thanks to the Government of Kenya, the programme is engaging on the idea of a regulatory sandbox: a flexible space for new blue economy enterprises to formalise, test and grow without being slowed down by high entry costs or complex procedures.

This matters because a cooperative should not have to spend scarce loan money just to register or comply. The loan should go into the actual work: seedlings, ropes, drying, storage, aggregation, transport and production.

Offtaker agreements also matter. For many women seaweed farmers and fisherfolk, traditional collateral is a barrier. They may not have land titles, large assets or formal security to offer a bank. If a buyer has committed to purchase the seaweed, that agreement helps show the lender there is a market, future cash flow and a clearer path to repayment.

This is why the financing model is not traditional lending as usual. Through negotiations with the UN, government, offtakers, guarantors and other actors, the financing is being shaped around cooperatives, buyer agreements, guarantees, interest subsidies, regulatory support and shared responsibility.

In this model, no actor carries the burden alone.

The goal is not simply to bring private capital into the blue economy. The goal is to bring it in in a way that strengthens communities rather than exposing them.

The lesson beyond seaweed

Seaweed matters beyond seaweed because it shows that the blue economy will not grow through grants alone. It also will not grow fairly through private capital alone. It needs a bridge between the two.

Grants can organise. Offtakers can create markets. Guarantees can reduce lender risk. Interest subsidies can make borrowing affordable. A regulatory sandbox can lower the cost of entering business. Cooperatives can aggregate producers. Government can secure space and create enabling rules.

That is what closing the loop means. Ocean ambition reaches the fisher, the seaweed farmer, the women’s group, the cooperative and the household at the shore.

And when that happens, the blue economy becomes income, dignity and real commerce for the people who live closest to the ocean.