The role of foreign aid in improving ocean health: new insights from a global database

The goal of this study is to empirically investigate the influence of foreign aid (FA), encompassing ODA for the ocean economy, ODA for the sustainable ocean economy, and ODA for curbing ocean pollution on the ocean health index (OHI). We use different indicators to evaluate ocean economies’ efficiency and sustainability in European regions between 2011 and 2020. Using several econometric methodologies, including the panel-corrected standard errors, feasible generalized least squares, two-step general method of moments, and autoregressive distributed lag using the pooled mean group estimator, we get solid results. We also compare and illustrate the short- and long-term effects in order to clarify the link between FA and OHI factors. The results show that ODA for the sustainable ocean economy and ocean health index has a positive and statistically significant correlation. In addition, the findings also suggest that the nexus between FA and OHI tends to exist in the long term. These findings all shed light on the promising prospects for leveraging foreign aid to enhance sustainability in ocean health.