Environment and Energy

UNDP on Transboundary Waters

Clearly transboundary waterbodies constitute the norm, not the exception. At the same time, in many of these shared systems, governance and institutional structures to ensure efficient, equitable and sustainable use of freshwater and marine resources are either weak or lacking altogether, underscoring the need for more cooperation and enhanced support from donors, international organizations, and others to help strengthen these frameworks.

For over 15 years, through its GEF International Waters portfolio, UNDP has been providing support to assist over 100 countries in working jointly to identify, prioritize, understand, and address the key transboundary environmental and water resources issues of some of the world’s largest and most significant shared waterbodies. UNDP’s International Waters portfolio targets transboundary water systems, such as river basins where water flows from one country to another, multi-country lake basins, groundwater resources shared by several countries, and large marine ecosystems (LME) bounded by more than one nation. Through these projects, UNDP helps countries work with their neighbors to modify human activities – including agriculture, industry, mining, water and other resource extraction, fishing and wastewater management – that place ecological stress on the water systems and degrade them, often affecting their downstream use by another country or community. In this way, water use conflicts can be prevented, security and livelihoods improved, habitats protected, health risks minimized and water resources used sustainably for the benefit of all.

UNDP-GEF International Waters projects target priority global transboundary environmental and water resources concerns including nutrient overenrichment, overuse and conflicting uses of water resources in surface and groundwater systems, degradation of physical habitats in coastal and near-shore marine areas, lakes and watercourses, the introduction of aquatic alien species, and excessive exploitation of living aquatic resources and associated biodiversity. UNDP-GEF’s currently active IW portfolio totals about US$ 200 million in GEF grant funding and leverages an additional US$ 470 million in co-finance. Some of the most important results delivered to date by UNDP-GEF’s International Waters programme include:

• Preparation and ministerial level adoption of 11 Strategic Action Programmes outlining national and regional commitments to governance reforms and investments; seven SAPs are now under implementation;
• Preparation and adoption of four regional waterbody legal agreements, some of which have already come into force - Lake Tanganyika, Pacific Fisheries, Caspian Sea (with UNEP support);
• The GEF-UNDP-IMO GloBallast programme is widely credited with playing a major role in helping catalyze adoption of an international Convention on Management of Ship Ballast Water and Sediments in 2004;
• Creation and/or strengthening of 14 multi-country marine/coastal, river and lake basin Commissions, including establishment of the world’s first two Large Marine Ecosystem Commissions in 2006 (Benguela Current & Guinea Current LMEs);
• Successful Strategic Partnership with the World Bank, European Union and other partners on nutrient reduction in the Danube/Black Sea basin led to measurable reductions in nutrient and other pollution loads to the highly degraded Black Sea ecosystem; Black Sea is now showing clear signs of recovery including reduced nutrient levels, elimination of enormous anoxic dead zone, and increased species abundance.

For further information on UNDP’s International Waters portfolio, see http://www.undp.org/gef/05/portfolio/iw.html.