Project Overview:
This
project is being funded by the Global Environment Facility (GEF), coordinated
by the United Nations Development Programme office of Trinidad and Tobago
(UNDP) with the Ministry of Planning and Development as the executing agency.
The goal of this project is to strengthen the ability of the
Government of the Republic Trinidad and Tobago (GoRTT) to create, leverage and
maintain synergies for the national implementation of Multilateral
Environmental Agreements (MEAs) and strengthen integrated approaches to
environmental management, including meeting MEAs guidance and national
reporting requirements.
Through
a learning-by-doing process, this project will implement capacity development
activities in Trinidad and Tobago to improve the synergistic implementation of
MEAs and, by extension, contribute to global environmental benefits.
The GEF:
The Global Environment Facility (GEF) was
established on the eve of the 1992 Rio Earth Summit to help tackle our planet’s
most pressing environmental problems. The GEF unites 183 countries in
partnership with international institutions, civil society organisations
(CSOs), and the private sector to address global environmental issues while
supporting national sustainable development initiatives. Since 1992, the GEF
has provided over $17 billion in grants and mobilised an additional $88 billion
in financing for more than 4000 projects in 170 countries. Through
its Small Grants Programme (SGP), the GEF has invested $450 million and
leveraged similar levels of co-financing supporting over 14,500 community-based
projects in over 125 countries.
As
an independently operating financial organisation, the GEF provides grants for
projects related to biodiversity, climate change, international
waters, land degradation, the ozone layer, persistent organic
pollutants (POPs), mercury, sustainable forest management, food
security, sustainable cities.
This
project falls under the “Cross Cutting Capacity Development Strategy” of the
GEF, which has the objective of addressing important capacity needs that will
enhance a country’s ability to meet its obligations under the Conventions by
creating synergies, while at the same time catalysing the mainstreaming of
multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs) into national policy, management
or financial and legislative frameworks.
Multilateral Environmental Agreements
of which Trinidad and Tobago are signatory include, inter alia:
Ø Convention on Biological
Diversity (CBD)
Ø United Nations Framework
Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)
Ø United Nations Convention to
Combat Desertification and Drought (UNCCD)
Ø Montreal Protocol
Ø Basel Convention on the Control
of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and Their Disposal
Ø Rotterdam Convention
Ø Stockholm Convention on
Persistent Organic Pollutants
Ø Convention on International Trade
in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES)
Ø Specially Protected Areas and
Wildlife (SPAW)
Ø Vienna Convention for the
Protection of the Ozone Layer
Ø Ramsar Convention (The Convention
on Wetlands)
Ø World Heritage Convention
Ø United Nations Convention on the
Law of the Sea (UNCLOS)
Ø Convention on Conservation &
Management of Straddling Fish Stocks and Highly Migratory Fish Stocks on the
High Seas
Ø International Convention for the
Prevention of Pollution from Ships (MARPOL)
Project Rationale:
The
analysis conducted for the formulation of this project indicates that there is
a clear set of capacity barriers hampering the implementation of MEAs in
Trinidad and Tobago, namely:
- Need for the
capacity of individuals involved in implementing MEAs to increase their
skills and knowledge;
- Need for the organisations
involved in implementing MEAs to improve their structures, coordination
and collaboration mechanisms and procedures;
- Need for the
enabling environment for implementing MEAs to be improved via development
of effective supporting policy, legal, institutional and financial
frameworks.
Project Objective:
u The project’s objective is
to implement capacity development activities in Trinidad and Tobago to improve
the synergistic implementation of MEAs and contribute to increase national and
global environmental benefits.
u The project will address key
capacity development needs related to the implementation of MEAs, seeking to
strengthen synergies to achieve maximum profitability, by re-structuring
organisational relationships, strengthening partnerships, relationships and
commitments, and improved coordination and collaboration.
u The project will also
strengthen the capacity of the Green Fund Executing Unit (GFEU) and of the CSOs
to improve the effectiveness of this unique national environmental funding
mechanism.
Project Outcomes:
- The institutional framework of the country is
strengthened and more coordinated, and more able to address global
environmental concerns. Under the first outcome, the project will focus
on assessing and structuring an improved consultative and decision-making
process that effectively integrates global environmental objectives into
the existing environmental management framework in Trinidad and Tobago.
The project will support the development of capacities of decision-makers
to interpret and agree on how best to govern the environment in Trinidad
and Tobago that not only meets national priorities, but also global
environmental obligations. This outcome will focus on the processes to
facilitate these decisions and strengthen the instruments available to
decision-makers and policy-makers in order to provide an adequate enabling
environment for improving the implementation of MEAs in Trinidad and
Tobago. Activities supported by the project under this outcome will also
include strengthening the process to engage, coordinate and collaborate
with non-governmental stakeholders, such as NGOs, CSOs, private sector and
academia.
- The Green Fund is effective as a funding
mechanism to support the implementation of MEAs in Trinidad and Tobago. Under this second
outcome, project resources will be used to support activities to better
align projects funded by the GFTT with the implementation of MEAs
obligations in Trinidad and Tobago; hence contributing to national
environmental benefits and by extension to global environmental benefits.
The project will seek to increase the effectiveness of this unique
national environmental funding mechanism by unleashing its funding
potential. Activities supported by the project will strengthen the
technical capacity of the Green Fund Executing Unit (GFEU) and the
capacity of CSOs to access project funding from the GFTT.
Major Project Outputs:
Participants at the Capacity Building Workshop
EPPD staff at the Workshop
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