Red Sea and Gulf of Aden Strategic Ecosystem Management GEF Project

closed

The objective of the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden Ecosystem Management Project for Middle East and North Africa is to improve management of marine resources in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden in selected MPAs building on resources protection and incentive systems for communities and the harmonization of the knowledge base on marine resources among Regional Organization for the Conservation of the Environment of the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, or PERSGA member countries. There are four components to the project: the first component being strengthening of marine management concept in marine protected areas. The second component is the strengthening coastal communities. This component is aimed at strengthening local communities' capacity to identify, develop and implement sub-projects aimed at: (i) reducing pressure on marine resources, and (ii) the provision of alternative livelihood income in such areas as fish processing, recreational fishing, eco-tourism and small, scale aquaculture. The third component is the regional environmental and socioeconomic monitoring network. This component will strengthen the regional environmental and socioeconomic monitoring network of PERSGA member countries to support ecosystem and community benefits based management, including standardizing parameters and monitoring approaches, making data comparable and sharable, and expansion of monitoring to include socio-economic data, especially for fishery and marine protected areas communities. Finally, the fourth component is the project management. This component is expected to support the recipients' capacity for project management, coordination, monitoring and evaluation through provision of goods, consultants' services, including audit, and training.