The GEF-UNEP MedProgramme’s Annual Stocktaking Meeting (ASM) will be held on 2-3 November 2022 in Athens, Greece. “Assess – Synergize – Move forward” is the slogan chosen for the meeting. The MedProgramme Coordination Unit, which is hosted by the Mediterranean Action Plan of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP/MAP), the MedProgramme’s lead executing agency, is organizing this first edition of the ASM in cooperation with the implementing agencies and executing partners of the eight MedProgramme Child Projects.
The ASM will bring together representatives of beneficiary countries (Albania, Algeria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Egypt, Lebanon, Libya, Montenegro, Morocco, Tunisia and Türkiye) and other stakeholders for an in-depth review of progress in the implementation of the “Mediterranean Sea Programme: Enhancing Environmental Security” (MedProgramme).
The MedProgramme focuses on priority actions to reduce major transboundary environmental stresses in coastal areas while strengthening climate resilience and water security to improve the health and livelihoods of coastal populations and promote gender equality. The eight Child Projects cut across four GEF focal areas: Biodiversity, Chemicals and Waste, Climate Change Adaptation, and International Waters.
“The stocktaking meeting will further enhance cooperation, and hopefully promote better management of natural resources in coastal areas around the Mediterranean. Monitoring progress is key,” said Tatjana Hema, the UNEP/MAP Coordinator.
Assess, synergize and move forward
Fifty participants representing various developmental and societal actors, including multilateral environmental agreements and sister UN agencies, banking institutions, intergovernmental, governmental and non-governmental bodies, industry, research and media organizations, will take part in the meeting.
The ASM will provide a forum for peer-to-peer learning and experience-sharing among the institutions in charge of implementation. One of the priorities will be to bolster synergy through coordination among the institutions implementing the eight Child Projects, in accordance with the GEF programmatic approaches.
The meeting will also spotlight impact achieved thus far and, if deemed required, propose programmatic changes to accelerate the MedProgramme’s implementation.
Promising signals are emerging
Notwithstanding the disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, the first two years of implementation of the MedProgramme are beginning to bear fruit.
In the Moroccan city of Tangiers and the Bay of Kotor in Montenegro, two pilots of integrated coastal management plans are laying the groundwork for the sustainable use of natural resources, ensuring equity, sustainability and the integration of climate change risks for greater resilience. The plans encompass a gender-based approach to enhancing women and men’s resilience to climate change by considering their differentiated needs and priorities.
The ongoing implementation of the MedProgramme Gender Mainstreaming Strategy in all beneficiary countries is ensuring gender-responsive stakeholder engagement. A Community of Practice is enhancing executing partners’ gender capacity, fostering knowledge on gender equality and women’s empowerment, and enabling the collection and analysis of sex-disaggregated data.
In Libya, the MedProgramme has been instrumental in the drafting of new national legislation on marine protected areas that is expected to bolster conservation efforts in a country that has magnificent but highly vulnerable natural sites.
In Algeria and Lebanon, the MedProgramme national teams are stepping up efforts for the final disposal of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), a set of hazardous chemicals that have dangerous effects on people and nature. Although PCB production has ceased worldwide, the phase-out of PCB-containing oil and PCB-containing equipment remains a challenge.
In Bosnia and Herzegovina, the MedProgramme is shoring up national efforts to address mercury pollution in Tuzla, the country’s third-largest city. Mercury is globally recognized as a “hazardous chemical of global concern owing to its long-range atmospheric transportation, its persistence in the environment once anthropogenically introduced, its ability to bioaccumulate in ecosystems and its significant negative effects on human health and the environment”. In Tuzla, an assessment supported by the MedProgramme will identify crucial risk-mitigation measures for decision-makers and communities.
The MedProgramme’s ongoing work on PCBs and Mercury is part of a wider push against persistent organic pollutants (POPs) and mercury (Hg), supported by the Secretariats of the Basel, Rotterdam Stockholm (BRS) and the Minamata Conventions—. By the end of 2024, the full implementation of the MedProgramme is expected to lead to the disposal of 2,000 tons of POPs and of 50 tons of Mercury.
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