|
 The United Nations
Development Programme (UNDP) in collaboration with the Global
Environment Facility (GEF) launched the book "CATALYSING OCEAN FINANCE"
on 14th December 2012 in Washington D.C. Drawing on 20 years
of research and experience, Catalysing Ocean Finance demonstrates in
two volumes how a modest investment of public finance, in the order of
$5 billion over the next 10-20 years, can scale up proven ocean planning
and policy tools, leverage financial flows,
transform ocean markets, and reverse the global decline in ocean
health. This book demonstrates that, far from being an intractable
problem, sustainable ocean management could become a successful legacy
of today's generation of decision-makers.
To illustrate the
application of market transformation instruments to promote sustainable
coastal and marine resource development, the book features six case
studies, drawn from the portfolio of International
Waters projects financially supported by the GEF and implemented by
UNDP in 31 of the world’s most important trans¬boundary marine and
freshwater ecosystems.. These six are: (i) Black Sea and the Danube
River Basin; (ii) Yellow Sea Large Marine Ecosystem;
(iii) Rio de la Plata and its Maritime Front; (iv) Seas of East Asia;
(v) West and Central Pacific Fisheries; and (vi) Global Ballast Water
Programme.
The world's oceans are
known to provide trillions of dollars in goods and services every year;
however, many ocean ecosystems are in steep decline because of
pollution, overexploitation, habitat loss, invasive
species, and climate change. Without concerted near-term effort, the
damage may become irreversible and consequently reverse the progress
made so far in achieving sustainable development.
Although not included
in the book as case studies, in Africa, UNDP supports most of coastal
states in sub-Saharan Africa whose economy and development depend upon
fisheries and other marine resources. UNDP-GEF
supports the following four (out of five) Large Marine Ecosystems
(LMEs) along the African continent: Agulhas and Somali Current LMEs,
Benguela Current LME, and Guinea Current LME. Strategic Action
Programmes developed for each of those African LMEs will 1)
promote key policy reforms, 2) strengthen joint management of the
marine resources, and 3) catalyse and direct investments from both
public and private. The next set of case studies for Catalyzing Ocean
Finance will most likely be developed from the LMEs in
Africa. Members of the ASCLME Project are strongly encouraged to download the two volumes and consider how the "lessons learned" can be applied to implementing the joint ASCLME/SWIOFP Strategic Action Programme, and particularly, how long term sustainable partnerships can leverage continued support for SAP Implementation, both during a GEF-funded SAP Implementation Project and far beyond. The electronic version can be downloaded from the GEF website here. An overview of the book was given at the 6th Project Steering Committee Meeting in February 2013; the PDF of that presentation is available here.
|
News
