Strategic Partnership Explores Investments in Pollution Reduction

Quezon City, Philippines — An organizational workshop to discuss the Strategic Partnership arrangement among the GEF, The World Bank, UNDP and PEMSEA was held at the PEMSEA Office Building on 24-26 June. The Strategic Partnership for the Sustainable Development of the Seas of East Asia is designed to enhance pollution reduction initiatives in the East Asia Seas in support of the Sustainable Development Strategy for the Seas of East Asia (SDS-SEA) Two GEF-supported projects, namely the GEF/UNDP/UNOPS Project on the Implementation of the SDS-SEA, referred to as the regional component of the Strategic Partnership, and the World Bank/GEF Partnership Investment Fund for Pollution Reduction in the Large Marine Ecosystems of East Asia, referred to as the investment component, are being implemented in parallel.Representatives from the Global Environment Facility (Mr. Ivan Zavadsky), The World Bank (Dr. Tracy Hart), United Nations Development Programme (Dr. Anna Tengberg) and the PEMSEA Resource Facility (Prof. Raphael P.M. Lotilla, Mr. S. Adrian Ross and Ms. Maricor Ebarvia) convened to discuss a management framework for operationalizing the Strategic Partnership arrangement.Among the outputs of the workshop was a draft management framework for the Strategic Partnership arrangement, a series of indicators for measuring the value-added contribution of the Strategic Partnership to the implementation of the SDS-SEA, and work programme and budget for 2008-2011. The results of the workshop were presented to the EAS Partnership Council Meeting, held in Tokyo, Japan on 14-17 July.