East Asian Seas Stocktaking Meeting: Chair's Summary

DESCRIPTION:

The East Asian Seas Stocktaking Meeting was held at the Asian Development Bank (ADB) Auditorium A, Manila, Philippines from 28-29 October 2010. The ADB and Government of the Philippines through the Department of Environment and Natural Resources hosted the meeting. The objective of the meeting was to assess the status and identify the constraints to sustainable management of the regional seas, and to prioritize the interventions and the potential role of the GEF over the next 4 years (i.e., 2011 to 2014). The Stocktaking Meeting concluded the following: The Stocktaking Background Paper was well received and considered to be a good and useful document in the context of the stocktaking effort. It will undergo refinement based on inputs provided during the meeting. The refined paper will then be disseminated to GEF agencies, GEF Secretariat, participating countries and concerned regional organizations. Country ownership and country-drivenness to address transboundary issues in the Seas of East Asia have developed and strengthened over the years with GEF support, as evidenced by the development and adoption of the SDS-SEA and the YSLME and SCSLME SAPs with their associated national action plans as well as by the implementation of the pollution reduction investment fund. PEMSEA and the SDS-SEA, respectively, can provide a regional governance mechanism, framework and scope for integrated and collaborative planning, coordination, and monitoring and reporting of outputs and impacts of regional, subregional and national projects for sustainable management of the seas of East Asia, as well as to promote knowledge management and associated good practices. There are recognized needs for increased programmatic GEF investments in the EAS region according to a programmatic agenda covering: Knowledge-sharing, advocacy, communication, development and dissemination and good practices, and capacity development/training, awareness building and education; Thematic priorities including: the blue agenda with marine and coastal habitat and resource conservation and management (with an increase attention to fisheries resources); and the brown agenda: land-based sources of marine pollution. In addition, climate change adaptation is a cross-cutting priority to be mainstreamed in the two above thematic priorities. Scaling up of investments at the local and national levels in support of capital works identified and developed in coastal areas in the context of ICM, when possible, through linkages with the public and private sectors, using domestic and international finance; A shift from projects that have a planning focus to projects that promote good practices, implement agreed plans and result in desired on-the-ground changes. A programmatic agenda to scale up entails: Working across sectors and in several countries; Mobilizing resources programmatically within and across different sources of finance and different sectors; and Making effective and efficient use of available human and financial resources by increasing synergy and alignment. GEF agencies now need to work with countries to develop the regional and national projects using a programmatic approach for submission to GEF in order to support the regional implementation of SDS-SEA (final phase), the YSLME SAP and the SCSLME SAP as well as to scale up country-based actions along the lines of the identified thematic priorities.