Building capacity to enable environmental sustainability
In March 2009 the EU initiated a four year capacity building project entitled "Capacity Building related to MEAs in African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) Countries", implemented by UNEP, and known as the ACP MEAs Project.
The overall objective of the Pacific component is to strengthen and enhance the endogenous capacity of the 15 Pacific ACP countries (Cook Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Fiji, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Nauru, Niue, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Timor Leste, Tonga, Tuvalu, and Vanuatu) to effectively implement and comply with MEAs and related commitments, and thereby improve management of the environment and the natural resources. This will address poverty alleviation in a sustainable development perspective and improve peoples' livelihoods, and address the adverse effects of climate change, loss of biodiversity, drought, land degradation, hazardous waste and other threats to the environment. The Pacific hub of the project is SPREP.
Capacity building activities are applied at both the national and regional level. Click here to see an interactive map summarising project activities to date.
Actions can be summarized in 6 main areas:
- Negotiation skills training: capacity for negotiation skills and MEA COP support is built through a programme of national and regional training workshops, and direct support at the MEA COP meetings;
- MEA mainstreaming support: integrated environmental assessment process, development of national integrated environmental policies, and knowledge management. Capacity is built by a programme of national support and training to improve processes and planning frameworks, as well as mentoring of key staff through the process;
- Technical assistance for Environmental Impact Assessments, by national level training;
- Regional coordination: between regional coordination mechanisms, other EC projects, and CROP agencies;
- Awareness raising and access to information on the MEAs, materials and information available on-line via the MEA Clearing House Mechanism housed on the SPREP webpage;
- South - South cooperation: a programme of professional exchanges between the hubs for the Pacific, Caribbean and African country groups.
