Partnerships
Ghana Navy
The Ocean Margins Initiative has partnered with the Ghana Navy to conduct its research cruises onboard the GNS Aflao. The use of the vessel and the assistance of Navy personnel for navigation and cruise logistics has made possible the incredible progress of OMI to date in field testing its sampling procedures and training a new generation of ocean science researchers in West Africa. In 2025 alone, five research cruises were completed on the GNS Aflao. This support from the Ghana Navy further strengthens its relationship to the Unviersity of Ghana, with whom it holds a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on improving monitoring of the nation’s maritime space. It also serves to demonstrate the collaborative commitment of institutions and agencies across Ghana to advance national priorities of achieving excellence in ocean science, promoting climate resilience, and sustainably managing critical ocean resources.
Fishers
Fishing communities across the entire Gulf of Guinea coast depend on the marine resources fed by the boom and bust cycles of this coastal upwelling ocean margin. Approximately 13,000 small vessels, 110,000 fishermen, and 1.9 million fish processors and traders make up Ghana’s artisanal canoe fishery, and they source their livelihoods from a part of the ocean far less studied and understood scientifically compared to subtropical zones. In order to cover a wider reach of this understudied system, and to connect directly with those most impacted by this ocean margin and its processes, the Ocean Margins Initiative is partnering with Ghanaian fishermen to install GPS beacons and temperature sensors to their canoes. This real-time data has the potential to serve dual purposes of increasing vessel connectivity to improve safety at-sea and gathering temperature data coverage which could enable stronger prediction of seasonal upwelling.