South East Asia Policy Project

The support given to civil society organizations to participate in the preparatory activities leading to the 2002 Millenium Summit on Sustainable Development resulted in renewed interest to monitor the commitments of their respective governments. The NGO networks developed a global proposal to monitor country commitments looking at linkages between poverty and environment. This component is funded through a grant by WWF-Denmark and DANIDA.

The applied use of Sustainability Assessments (SA) in the Live Food Fish Trade was published and disseminated to wide acceptance by WWF Network and policy-makers. The Palawan Council for Sustainable Development used the study in crafting its live food fish policy. SA is a tool used to evaluate impacts of trade policies by weighing economic benefits generated to the costs incurred on the social and bio-physical environment. This component is supported by a grant from WWF-International.

The conservation finance unit monitored the implementation of the user-fee ordinance of the municipality of Mabini in its initial year of implementation. Results of performance reviews were fed back for corrective action. What does this mean? WWF intensively discussed the user-fee proposal with Puerto Galera stakeholders until both groups agreed on financing schemes and the process of developing a coastal management program. A user fee manual was developed and scheduled for printing in 2005. The project was supported by an East Asia Pacific - Environment Initiative (EAP-EI) grant from USAID.

To know more about this project, please email rcabonegro@wwf.org.ph