The second meeting on the development of indicators to report on the progress of the implementation of Horizon 2020 Initiative for a Cleaner Mediterranean (2015-2020) and National Action Plans to address Pollution from land-based Activities was held in Athens on 17-18 April 2018. The Meeting was organized by UN Environment/Mediterranean Action Plan (MAP), Plan Bleu and MED POL Programme, in collaboration with and the European Environment Agency (EEA), under ENI SEIS II Project funded in the framework of the second phase of the H2020 initiative and 2018-2019 MAP PoW..
MED POL and SEIS Focal Points as well as other thematic experts participating in the meeting, reviewed and agreed on a set of proposed indicators and their methodological specifications with modifications, grouped under three sectors: waste water; solid waste with relevance to marine litter; and industrial emissions. The meeting also focused on the assessment of reporting processes, including existing regional infrastructures such as the MED POL Information System, IMAP Info system under development, etc, and reviewed data collection practices and data gaps pertaining to the development of the proposed indicators.
The meeting agreed on the next steps to complete the adjustments of methodological specifications and to ensure the production, collection, and handling of the data needed to populate the H2020 indicators database with the support of the ENI SEIS II Project. A Workshop on regional infrastructure regarding dataflows will be organized in July 2018 in collaboration with Info-RAC. Subsequently, the MED POL Programme will lead the data call related to the National Baseline Budget update as stipulated in the 2018-2019 MED POL Programme of Work.
The H2020 Initiative aims to de-pollute the Mediterranean by the year 2020 by tackling the sources of pollution that account for around 80% of the overall pollution of the Mediterranean Sea. It also supports the implementation of the commitments undertaken in the framework of the Barcelona Convention, including MAP's Strategic Action Programme to address pollution from land-based activities (SAP MED) and National Action Plans (NAPs).
The NAPs 2016–2025 were endorsed by the 19th Meeting of the Contracting Parties as unique policy documents comprising legally binding programmes of measures and timetables required to achieve Good Environmental Status and the Regional Plans / LBS Protocol objectives in the framework of SAP-MED. The Parties also requested the Secretariat to carry out indicator-based midterm evaluation of the NAPs implementation based on the existing reporting system and in close collaboration with the Contracting Parties for submission to the 21st Meeting of the Contracting Parties scheduled for December 2019.
The programme of work of the H2020 initiative aims at achieving a strengthened pollution-prevention dimension, with a focus on emerging issues such as hazardous waste, wastewater and waste management focusing on marine litter. The second H2020 indicator-based assessment will be finalized in 2019 and will complement the first H2020 Mediterranean Report which was issued in 2014 within the framework of Cooperation Agreement between UN Environment/MAP and EEA.
