The 11th Our Ocean Conference (OOC) in Mombasa is a business and maritime opportunity for Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, South Sudan and the DRC — not a coastal spectacle to watch from afar.
When the 11th Our Ocean Conference opens in Mombasa from 16 to 18 June 2026, the temptation across the region’s interior will be to treat it as Kenya’s coastal showcase. For Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo, that would be a costly misreading. None of these economies needs to own a shoreline to live or die by the sea. Mombasa is their port. The Northern Corridor is their lifeline. And this conference is where the money and the rules for both are being decided.
Start with what binds these five together: each was allocated land at the Naivasha Special Economic Zone, where cargo railed from Mombasa can be cleared inland before moving on to Kampala, Kigali, Bujumbura, Juba and eastern Congo. That land is, in effect, each country’s own piece of the sea, an inland maritime node. Most of it sits underused. The conference offers both a reason and a route to change that.
The business case is blunt. The Our Ocean Conference is not a forum for speeches; it is built around financed commitments. Since 2014 it has generated more than 2,900 pledges worth over US$169 billion.
The 2026 edition is expected to feature a Global South Blue Economy Investment Platform targeting some US$60 billion in bankable projects, plus an Executive Business and Investment Forum where governments pitch investment-ready proposals directly to financiers. A region perpetually short of infrastructure capital is being handed a venue purpose-built to supply it.
None of these economies needs to own a shoreline to live or die by the sea.
The countries that arrive with costed projects like cargo-handling equipment, cold chains, fish-processing plants, inland water transport, will leave with partners. Those that arrive empty-handed will leave with nothing.
The maritime case is just as direct. Among the flagship outcomes expected are green shipping corridors. The single route that sets the price of fuel, fertiliser and machinery across the interior runs from Mombasa inland. A financed, decarbonised corridor lowers that cost while attracting climate finance.
Maritime security — one of the conference’s core action areas — is not abstract for nations whose entire import and export trade transits a single ocean port. Congestion or disruption at Mombasa is felt instantly in Kampala and Goma. These governments have every reason to help shape the security and efficiency of a gateway they depend on but rarely help govern.
Nor is “blue economy” closed to the landlocked. The agenda explicitly covers inland and freshwater systems. Lake Victoria, bordering Uganda; Lake Tanganyika, lapping Burundi and the DRC; Lake Albert, Lake Kyoga and the great river systems — all are maritime assets in everything but name. They carry cargo, feed millions and sustain fisheries now collapsing under overfishing and pollution.
The conference’s work on sustainable fisheries, transparency and marine pollution transfers almost directly to these waters. A regional fish trade worth hundreds of millions of dollars depends on getting that governance right.
There is also strength in arriving together. Individually, each of these states is a modest voice. As a bloc of five hinterland economies, which move their trade through the same corridor and hold land at the same inland port, can negotiate green-corridor terms, single-clearance arrangements and tariff harmonisation with real weight — and jointly pitch a shared corridor project no single country could finance alone.
This is the first Our Ocean Conference on African soil, framed around the continent’s priorities. The negotiating frame has never been more favourable to them.
The opportunity is also fleeting. The summit runs three days. The preparation — feasibility studies, costed proposals, a coordinated regional position — must be done now, by transport, trade and finance ministries working with the freight operators who actually move the cargo. Walking in unprepared squanders the rarest thing these economies have: leverage at the table where the money sits.
Mombasa’s tides will not reach Kampala or Kigali. But the decisions taken on its shore this June will reach every market in the interior. The five governments that grasp that the sea is their business — even without a coast — will be the ones that profit from it.
Harry Arigi is a Maritime consultant and MIHR. He comments on regional trade, maritime logistics, safety and development policy.