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Island governments have made decent work and social protection their highest policy priority, aiming to link them to the so-called blue economy sectors such as fisheries. The development of small-scale commercial fishing is primarily driven by transnational fisheries trade and depends on dive fisher labour force facing issues with deficits in decent work, health and safety, and safety at sea provisions. Given the macro-policy priorities for decent work in the transition of small island developing states (SIDS) to blue economy, this paper examines the development interventions in small-scale commercial fisheries trade that have exacerbated unsafe marine working conditions of dive fishers. Despite significant investments in developing commercial fisheries trade, the mismatch between macro-level decisions and micro-level labour needs has hardly been explored via the blue economy and sustainable development goal interlinkages. This study used a qualitative research approach to examine the unsafe working conditions of dive fishers and examined why dive-related accidents and fatalities occur in commercial fisheries in the first place. A systematic approach in the analysis of diving accidents helps the study to, firstly, highlight the gaps between macro policy and practice at the national and global levels. Secondly, the approach helps explore the need for a coherent approach to policy integration that bridges the gap between the macro and operational levels of small-scale fisheries labour force. The study analyses the International Labour Organization’s decent work instruments with SIDS sustainable development priorities for fisheries workforce and points out that governments must be responsible at the macro level for managing accidents at sea and building a safe diving workforce through competent marine and diving authorities.

To achieve coral reef resilience under Agenda 2030, island governments need to institutionalise a competent blue workforce to expand their reef resilience initiatives across economic organisations and industries. The ability of island governments to shape new policies for sustainable island development relying on natural capital, such as coral reefs, has been hampered by structural and institutional deficiencies on both sides of the science-policy interface (SPI) at the UN. Using a qualitative research design, this article explores the science-policy interface (SPI) policy paper, Rebuilding Coral Reefs: A Decadal Grand Challenge and the role of this SPI in guiding UN coral reef financing for island states. This article uses the dive industry to investigate the needs of policymakers in island states via a conceptual framework for policy analysis. This article highlights the gaps of the SPI from the perspective of the global south and is beneficial for the islands selected under the Global Coral Reef Investment Plan. The article highlights the results of the SPI to island decision makers, which indicate that, without a policy framework that includes space for industrial policy within UN SPI, island governments will continue to fall into financial traps that constrain their efforts in operationalising their blue workforce. The study concludes that interlinked SDGs, such as SDG 9 and SDG 8, which focus on linking industrial innovation and infrastructure with decent work, as well as SDG 16 and 14.7, provide SIDS institutions with integrated policy approaches capable of bridging the divides between the scientific community, the diving industry, and island governments and that this needs to be further explored at all levels.

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