[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

DAM-L Global Efforts To Protect Transboundary Waters (fwd)



----- Forwarded message from svarghese@iatp.org -----

Return-path: <svarghese@iatp.org>
Received: from mail.iatp.org (iatp-2.InnovSoftD.com [208.141.36.66])
	by lox.sandelman.ottawa.on.ca (8.8.7/8.8.8) with ESMTP id RAA08991
	for <dianne@sandelman.ottawa.on.ca>; Mon, 5 Nov 2001 17:57:05 -0500 (EST)
From: svarghese@iatp.org
Received: from mail.iatp.org [208.141.36.110] by mail.iatp.org with ESMTP
	 (SMTPD32-7.04) id A8DC790B0218; Mon, 05 Nov 2001 16:56:09 -0600
Content-Type: text/plain
Date: Mon, 05 Nov 2001 16:44:58 -0600
Subject: Global Efforts To Protect Transboundary Waters
To: dianne@sandelman.ottawa.on.ca
Message-ID: <200111051656531.SM00440@mail.iatp.org>

Right to Water (right-to-water@iatp.org)    Posted: 11/05/2001  By  svarghese@iatp.org	
============================================================



Global Efforts To Protect Transboundary Waters

US$100 Million Approved for Black Sea Ecosystem Rehabilitation Project
New York, 1 October 2001 -- The United Nations Development Programme
(UNDP), the World Bank, and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)
will be implementing a $100 million Global Environment Facility (GEF) fund
for a Strategic Partnership over a six-year period to reverse nutrient
over-enrichment and toxic contamination of the Danube/Black Sea basin. The
Strategic Partnership, which will begin implementation in the fall of 2001,
comprises three sets of interventions aimed at reducing nutrient emissions
from the agricultural, industrial, and municipal sectors:

- A regional project for the Black Sea to be implemented by UNDP and UNEP.
- A regional project for the Danube River basin to be implemented with UNDP
assistance.
- An investment programme with the World Bank for the entire Danube/Black
Sea basin.

The UNDP projects focus on national legal and policy reform for basin-wide
nutrient reduction, strengthening monitoring systems, updating information
on the status of the Danube River and Black Sea, development of
environmental indicators, enhancing public participation, and strengthening
capacities of the Black Sea and Danube secretariats. UNEP will provide
assistance in updating the Black Sea Convention in line with the Global
Programme of Action to Protect the Marine Environment from Land Based
Activities. The World Bank will support investments aimed at reducing
nutrient emissions, such as improved wastewater treatment, agricultural
reform and wetlands restoration.

"This strategic partnership represents an innovation in the design of
multi-country, multi-donor programmes that address transboundary waters
issues that has the potential to be scaled up to other regions," said
Andrew Hudson, the UNDP-GEF Principal Technical Adviser for International
Waters. "The project reflects UNDP-GEF's strategy to assist participating
countries in utilizing the full range of technical, economic, financial and
institutional measures needed to secure an integrated approach to
sustainable management and use of shared water resources."

The long-term objective of the joint project is to assist the beneficiary
coastal countries (Bulgaria, Georgia, Romania, Russia, Turkey and Ukraine)
and their 10 upstream neighbours in the basin, to take measures to reduce
nutrient levels and other hazardous substances to such levels necessary to
permit Black Sea ecosystems to recover to similar conditions as those
observed in the 1960s.

UNDP-GEF's International Waters programme reflects an emerging tradition of
cooperative international waters management. It addresses a wide spectrum
of issues within the world's transboundary freshwater and marine
environments including river basins, enclosed seas, large marine ecosystems
(LME) and groundwater systems. The emphasis of the programme is on such
inter-linked aspects of water management as scarcity, pollution reduction,
biodiversity protection, habitat loss, and control of invasive species.
These issues in turn have direct linkages to UNDP focus areas of poverty
reduction, sustainable livelihoods, conflict prevention and governance.

In Lake Chad and the Nile, Okavango, and Niger River basins of Africa,
UNDP-GEF assistance signals a further willingness to resolve and prevent
tensions over water use and distribution by developing an integrated
approach to land and water resource management that addresses both human
and ecosystem needs. In the Okavango, UNDP is assisting the Okavango
Commission in the development of a Strategic Action programme aimed at
equitable sharing of the basin's water resources including protection of
the globally significant biodiversity of the downstream Okavango Delta.

The international science community has identified a set of approximately
50 LME characterized by their unique biology, chemistry, bathymetry and
hydrography. Over 95 percent of the world's commercial fish catch takes
place within these LME's, which also serve a critical role in regulating
climate and carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. UNDP-GEF is providing
assistance to nearly 80 countries bordering on 14 shared LME's to create
and strengthen institutions, reform policies and laws and broaden
stakeholder involvement towards the sustainable management of these vital
marine habitats. UNDP-GEF's $6 million industrial water pollution control
project in the Gulf of Guinea LME, implemented in partnership with the
United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), helped to
strengthen institutional capabilities at the national and regional level to
prevent and remedy pollution in the region and facilitate active
participation of non-governmental organizations in project activities.

At the global level, UNDP-GEF is partnering with the International Maritime
Organization (IMO) in a project (GloBallast) aimed at strengthening the
capacity of developing countries to respond to the growing threat from
invasive marine species transported in ship ballast water, which have
already caused billions of dollars in damage and threatened ecosystem
stability in a number of locations, including the Black Sea. UNDP is also
working with UNIDO in the development of a project aimed at reducing
mercury emissions to shared waterways from artisanal gold mining, with
concurrent health and livelihood benefits to local mining communities.
Since its creation as a pilot programme in 1991, UNDP-GEF has been actively
involved in the global action on water in many developing countries.
Through more than 30 water-related projects involving over 110 nations,
UNDP-GEF is playing a prominent role in catalyzing innovative strategies to
address transboundary water issues. It has forged numerous partnerships
with other UN and Bretton Woods agencies such as the World Bank, UNEP, IMO,
UNIDO and the European Union, and allocated over $500 million (including
co-financing leveraged) to international waters efforts.

About the Global Environment Facility
The GEF provides grants and concessional funds to developing countries and
economies in transition for projects designed to protect the global
environment.

GEF projects encompass a variety of activities that address climate change,
biological diversity, international waters, and depletion of the ozone layer.

Activities in land degradation, primarily desertification and deforestation
as they relate to the four focus areas, are also eligible for funding. GEF
projects are implemented by UNDP, UNEP, and the World Bank. Its home page is:
http://www.gefweb.org

About the United Nations Development Programme
UNDP is committed to the principle that development is inseparable from the
quest for peace and human security. With offices in 132 countries, the UNDP
mission is to help countries carry out development programmes in democratic
governance, poverty reduction, crisis prevention and recovery, energy and
environment, information and communications technology, and HIV/AIDS. Its
home page is: http://www.undp.org

For further information, contact Nicholas Gouede, Communications Office,

UNDP-COA at nicholas.gouede@undp.org, tel. (212) 906-6801; Andrew Hudson,
Principal Technical Adviser for International Waters, UNDP-GEF at
andrew.hudson@undp.org, tel. (212) 906-6228.
Hutton G. Archer
Team Leader, External Relations
Global Environment Facility (GEF)
1818 H Street N.W., Suite G6-150
Washington, DC 20433, USA
tel: (202) 458-7117
fax: (202) 522-3240
e-mail: harcher@worldbank.org
Internet: www.gefweb.org

http://www.sustdev.org/industry.news/102001/02.03.shtml






============================================================
How to Use this Mailing List
============================================================

You received this e-mail as a result of your registration on the right-to-water mailing list.

To unsubscribe, please send an email to listserv@iatp.org. In the body of the message type:
unsubscribe right-to-water

For a list of other commands and list options, please send email to listserv@iatp.org. 
In the body of the message type:
help

Please direct content questions about this list to: mritchie@iatp.org

Please direct technical questions about this service to: support@iatp.org

----- End of forwarded message from svarghese@iatp.org -----