The Foundation developed the idea of a Congo Basin Blue Fund in 2015. In the aim of directing financing toward programs that promote a ‘blue economy’ in the region, emphasizing the sustainable use of river waters and the natural ecosystems of the forest, the proposal for a Congo Basin Blue Fund was formally launched at the UN Climate Change Conference COP 22, in Marrakesh in 2016. At a special meeting in the margins of COP 22, the African Union adopted it as one of Africa’s priority climate change initiatives. In March 2017 at a meeting in Oyo in the Republic of the Congo, ten countries signed a Memorandum of Understanding in which they committed themselves to establishing the Blue Fund for the Congo Basin. In 2018 the United Nations Development Programme prepared a tender for a major feasibility study which will make detailed recommendations on how the Fund will operate and be financed.