World Maritime Day will be celebrated by the United Nations next week on Thursday 24 September 2026.
For the first time, the theme of the day will run for two years, from 2026 to 2027 and the theme is: “From Policy to Practice: Powering Maritime Excellence”.
The theme is said to highlight the International Maritime Organization’s commitment to putting policies into practice by providing technical assistance, training, capacity-building, knowledge sharing and other essential services to support IMO Member States across the maritime sector.
Commenting on the theme, IMO Secretary General, Arsenio Dominguez said:
“For nearly 80 years, IMO has built the framework for global shipping – more than 50 international conventions shape the everyday of maritime life. However, we must be honest – experience shows that the true value of these instruments is realized only when they are effectively applied, delivering practical benefits on board ships, in ports and throughout the global maritime domain.
“The real test and the real responsibility lie in implementation, how we transition from “Policy to Practice: Powering Maritime Excellence”. The theme reflects our mission: ensuring that the global regulatory framework we develop is not merely adopted in principle, but translated into concrete actions and real-world results that deliver tangible benefits for all.
“When we talk about “practice”, we are talking about people. The seafarers on the ship; the people in the port; those managing ship operations, ship recycling workers, port State control officers and flag State administrators.
“To make the maritime industry truly sustainable, we must ensure these high standards are felt in every port and on every deck – not selectively, not unevenly, but globally. IMO is committed to powering this transition through technical cooperation and direct support.
“Let us move beyond the conference room and turn our collective decisions into real-world results that benefit everyone.
“It is time to move decisively from policy to practice.”
Identified gaps, focusing attention
The IMO background paper on the theme of the day notes that there has been repeatedly identified gaps in national legislation and enforcement, which is a common deficiency that undermines regulatory effectiveness and heightens the risk of non-compliance and sub-standard shipping. “The theme of IMO’s World Maritime Day… is therefore both timely and urgent. It focuses global attention on translating adopted policies into concrete actions and measurable results, supported by capacity development and technical co-operation,” the background paper says.
The theme focuses the attention of national authorities to adopt legislation, develop enforcement mechanisms, and co-ordinate across agencies to ensure environmental protection measures are implemented in day-to-day maritime operations so as to deliver tangible benefits for biodiversity, climate resilience, and sustainable shipping.
Main elements
The IMO theme has three main elements:
- From Policy to Practice: ensuring globally agreed rules are implemented through national legislation, effective enforcement, and day-to-day operational reality across the maritime sector.
- [Em]powering: providing needs-based capacity-building, technical co-operation, training, and knowledge-sharing to drive implmentation.
- Maritime excellence: striving for consistently safe, secure, efficient, and environmentally sound shipping, operating to the highest international standards and continuously improving.
The key pillars of the “policy to practice” theme are…
- Implementation, capacity, and technical co-operation
- the theme promotes work towards delivering targeting technical assistance to draft / update national legislation, establish administrative frameworks, and strengthen enforcement;
- training programmes for administrations, ports and seafarers, supported by regional centres and partnerships;
- peer learning and knowledge exchange, leveraging IMO projects and global networks.
- Policy to practice from small island states / least developed country perspectives
- Small island states and least developed countries face unique maritime challenges toward the effective implementation of IMO instruments, including geographic isolation, limited institutional capacity, vulnerability to climate impacts, high dependency on maritime transport, and constrained fiscal resources. Tailored IMO support will include legislative assistance, training, skills development, support for digitalisation and Maritime Single Windows, decarbonization readiness, port resilience, safety and security frameworks, and marine environmental protection measures.
- Safety through innovation
- Regulatory readiness through decarbonisation
- Strengthening measures against fraudulent ship registration and maritime fraud
- Audit driven – improvement (IMSAS)
- Facilitation, digitalization and resilience
- Cybersecurity & maritime security
- Marine environment protection beyond carbon – which includes:
- marine litter and plastics
- underwater radiated noise
- ballast water and biofouling
- special areas and particularly sensitive sea areas
- ship recycling
Read more:
IMO Background Paper on World Maritime Day 2026-2027 https://wwwcdn.imo.org/localresources/en/MediaCentre/Documents/Background%20paper%20EN.pdf
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