GEF IW regional programs can be a vehicle to foster multi-country understanding, communication and cooperation between countries where it otherwise may not have been occurring (Nile, BCLME, Tumen, Gulf of Aqaba, etc).

1. 2nd GEF Biennial International
Waters Conference
Sept. 25-29, 2002
Dalian, China
Implementing Agency Perspectives
UNDP-GEF
Andy Hudson, Principal Tech. Advisor, International Waters

2. • GEF IW regional programs can be a vehicle to
foster multi-country understanding,
communication and cooperation between
countries where it otherwise may not have
been occurring (Nile, BCLME, Tumen, Gulf
of Aqaba, etc.)

3. • TDA/SAP approach to addressing TB
issues has been further tested and refined
and is clearly now well-established as an
effective modality for catalyzing protection
and rehabilitation of shared waterbodies in a
way that is integrated, cross-sectoral and
has broad stakeholder involvement.

4. • Beyond TDA/SAP, GEF has tested other
successful, more local approaches to
environmental management, such as
PEMSEA’s use of demonstration and
replication of ICM sites, GloBallast’s use of
demo sites to test and replicate ballast water
management strategies, and Jordan’s Gulf of
Aqaba EAP. Challenges remain to integrate
local initiatives with broader scale approaches
such as LME and river basins.

5. • Inter-agency cooperation in GEF IW programming,
among IA’s, the expanded EA’s, and other UN
agency and donor partners, has contributed
significantly to the recent progress made by the GEF
IW portfolio. Important examples included the
Danube-Black Sea S.P., Red Sea SAP, Pacific SIDS,
PEMSEA, etc.

6. • Across the board, GEF IW projects have made
very strong commitments to broad stakeholder
involvement in project implementation, using a
variety of approaches, from stakeholder inclusion
in relevant committees, to small grants programs,
to awareness raising activities. This attention to
seeking and incorporating stakeholder views and
involvement bodes well for the institutional and
political sustainability of GEF catalyzed IW
programs.

7. • The GEF IW portfolio is showing increasing
success in leveraging financial, institutional
and political commitments by governments,
donors and other international institutions.
This leverage can be seen in numerous
examples such as the Danube-Black Sea
S.P., the Bohai Sea program, the PIC
Oceanic Fisheries and others.

8. • LMEs are emerging in acceptance as
management framework for sustainable
marine resource management, but more
remains to be done to increase awareness,
acceptance and application of the LME
approach.

9. • Implementation of GEF’s IW programme is
accelerating and has made tremendous
progress over the last two years since we
met in Budapest.

10. Some fresh IW process indicators
• No. of IWC2002 participants: 186
• No. of countries represented: 62
• No. of IW projects represented: 55