Project Summary

Project Summary

Small Island Developing States (SIDS) have special conditions and needs that were identified for international attention in the Barbados Programme of Action for the Sustainable Development of Small Island Developing States and in the World Summit for Sustainable Development’s Johannesburg Plan of Implementation. Throughout these instruments, the importance of coastal and marine resources and the coastal and marine environment to sustainable development of SIDS is emphasised, with the Plan of Implementation specifically calling for support for the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Convention (the WCPF Convention).

The GEF identifies sustainable management of regional fish stocks as one of the major environmental issues SIDS have in common, and as a target for activities under the SIDS component of OP 9, the Integrated Land and Water Multiple Focal Area Operational Program. In addition, the GEF promotes the adoption of an ecosystem-based approach to addressing environmental problems in Large Marine Ecosystems through activities under the Large Marine Ecosystem Component of OP 8, the Waterbody-Based Operational Program. Consistent with this framework, GEF financing for the South Pacific International Waters SAP Project from 2000 to support the implementation of an IW Pacific Islands SAP included a pilot phase of support for the Oceanic Fisheries Management Component, which underpinned successful efforts to conclude and bring into force the WCPF Convention.

Now, GEF assistance supports a new Pacific Islands OFM Project to support Pacific SIDS efforts as they participate in the setting up and initial period of operation of the new Commission that is at the centre of the WCPF Convention, and as they reform, realign, restructure and strengthen their national fisheries laws, policies, institutions and programmes to take up the new opportunities which the WCPF Convention creates and discharge the new responsibilities which the Convention requires.

The goals of the Project combine the interests of the global community in the conservation of a marine ecosystem covering a huge area of the surface of the globe, with the interests of some of the world’s smallest nations in the responsible and sustainable management of resources that are crucial for their sustainable development.

The global environmental goal of the Project is

to achieve global environmental benefits by enhanced conservation and management of transboundary oceanic fishery resources in the Pacific Islands region and the protection of the biodiversity of the Western Tropical Pacific Warm Pool Large Marine Ecosystem.

The broad development goal of the Project is

to assist the Pacific Island States to improve the contribution to their sustainable development from improved management of transboundary oceanic fishery resources, and from the conservation of oceanic marine biodiversity generally.

The IW Pacific Islands SAP identified the ultimate root cause underlying the concerns about, and threats to, International Waters in the region as deficiencies in management, and grouped the deficiencies into two linked subsets – lack of understanding, and weaknesses in governance.