Lead Organizations

Plan Bleu (implementing agency), The World Bank (executing agency).

Partners

French Development Agency (AFD), European Investment Bank (EIB), French Ministry of the Environment. 

Challenges

• The environment sector of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region suffers from incomplete and/or ineffective legal and institutional frameworks and weak coordination among ministries and government agencies.
• Environmental guidelines and standards need to be strengthened in order to adequately handle the complex and large infrastructure investments which the region lacks.

Program Objective

• To foster the integration of environmental issues into sectoral and development policies of Egypt, Lebanon, Morocco, Tunisia, and West Bank and Gaza.
• To foster regional integration through new knowledge on environmental issues and the organization of training and other events that use this knowledge to reinforce the capacity of key stakeholders at local, national, and regional levels.
• To strengthen regional integration further through systematic exchanges of experience among the beneficiaries.

Selected Results

• Informed strategy: An environmental assessment of the new Lebanese water sector strategy is being conducted to provide recommendations and high-level policy advice to the Ministry of Energy and Water for optimizing the strategy and limiting potential adverse effects.
• Informed strategy/stakeholder involvement: Local stakeholders have been involved in environmental management. Local actors are involved in twelve participatory workshops on strategic territorial governance and planning in six pilot sites (community level) in Morocco and Tunisia.
• Generated innovative approaches for a better understanding of maritime and coastal ecosystems. A study on the socioeconomic importance of maritime economic activities in Egypt, Lebanon, Morocco, and Tunisia and their interrelations with the marine and coastal ecosystems on which they depend leads to better management of maritime and coastal activities.
  Political leaders, finance, planning, sector ministers and ministerial staff, and environmental stakeholders (academics, scientists, non-governmental organizations, practitioners) benefit from the project. They participate directly in the activities financed and gain access to better information and exchanges. In turn, they contribute directly to the project through their inputs and feedback, creating a virtuous circle that results in an improved flow of information between technical experts and decision makers.