Geographical Scope: Global Lead Partner: Programme Solidarité Eau (pS-Eau)
Summary: The aim of this initiative is to define an innovative mechanism for mobilizing financial resources and broaden the financial resources indispensable to provide the poorest with water and sanitation services.
This initiative must profile the legislative, institutional, legal, financial recommendations for action and the guidelines for reform strategies within the French partners of the initiative, to build the operational framework of this new solidarity mechanism. Besides, this initiative should present how to raise awareness among the water users in France/Europe to have them contribute to and support this new fund raising model. In parallel, this action will aim at generating political support for the "cent per m3" concept.
Moreover, during this initiative of action identification, partners will constitute a platform. These cooperation linkages will serve as primary network for supporting the awareness raising actions later on. [more]
Geographical Scope: Global Lead Partner: International Water Management Institute (IWMI)
Summary: Development objective: To increase the productivity of water for food and livelihoods, in a manner that is environmentally sustainable and socially acceptable.
The immediate objectives of the Challenge Program on Water and Food:
1. Food security for all at household level.
2. Poverty alleviation, through increased sustainable livelihoods in rural and peri-urban areas.
3. Improved health, through better nutrition, lower agriculture-related pollution and reduced water-related diseases.
4. Environmental security through improved water quality as well as the maintenance of water related ecosystem services, including biodiversity.
These form the four key dimensions in which progress towards the overall goal is measured. [more]
Geographical Scope: Global Lead Partner: International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI)
Summary: The goal of the 'Biofortified Crops for Improved Human Nutrition' Challenge Program is to improve the health of poor people by breeding staple food crops that are rich in micronutrients, a process referred to here as "biofortification." The Biofortification Challenge Program seeks to bring the full potential of agricultural and nutrition science to bear on the persistent problem of micronutrient malnutrition. Micronutrient malnutrition, primarily the result of diets poor in bioavailable vitamins and minerals, affects more than half of the world's population, especially women and preschool children. The costs of these deficiencies in terms of lives lost, forgone economic growth, and poor quality of life are staggering. To reach the Millennium Development Goal's target of halving the proportion of undernourished people by 2015, new technologies and approaches are needed to help address the problem.
The Biofortification Challenge Program will focus on three micronutrients that are widely recognized by the World Health Organization (WHO) as limiting: iron, zinc, and vitamin A (beta-carotene). Full-time breeding programs are proposed for six staple foods for which feasibility studies have already been completed and which are consumed by the majority of the world's poor in Africa, Asia, and Latin America: rice, wheat, maize, cassava, sweet potatoes, and common beans. Pre-breeding feasibility studies are proposed for eleven additional staples: bananas, barley, cowpeas, groundnuts, lentils, millet, pigeon peas, plantains, potatoes, sorghum, and yams. [more]
Geographical Scope: Global Lead Partner: International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT)
Summary: Development Goal: To increase food security and improve livelihoods in developing countries by unlocking the genetic potential and enhancing the use of public genetic resources in plant breeding programs through the concerted generation, management, dissemination, and application of comparative biological knowledge.
The Problem: The rate of increase in potential and realized productivity of keystone crops is leveling off. Rural and urban populations continue to grow. Chronic environmental stresses continue to limit productivity, while catastrophic events, such as floods, sustained drought, and fire, cause nearly total losses in crops, which in most countries are not buffered by food reserves. The development of state-of the-art (bio)technologies has been primarily a private initiative, and owing to access and ownership issues, this technology may never be fully available to help those who need it most.
The Opportunity: The genomics revolution is contributing unprecedented quantities of information about biological systems, while the information age is are providing unprecedented abilities to store, access, and process data; together they offer the ability to uncover new biological phenomena at the gene level. New molecular-based as well as traditional approaches will be developed and used to identify plant materials with superior genetic characteristics, in particular drought tolerance, to allow plant breeders to easily transfer these genes to crops for resource-poor farmers, especially farmers in marginal agricultural environments, to alleviate chronic and acute deficiencies in food production and quality. [more]
Geographical Scope: Global Lead Partner: United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)
Summary: Capacity 2015 is a new and important initiative. It will build upon experience gained during the ten years since UNCED to help countries to move from strategic planning for sustainable development to effective implementation.
Capacity 2015 is timely and necessary, as it will:
* Help countries to reap the benefits of globalization;
* Ensure that processes of sustainable development put in place during the 1990s are utilized to face the challenges of the 21st century;
* Strengthen the capacities needed to achieve or exceed the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
The MDGs are a set of integrated and inter-related goals that contribute to sustainable development. Capacity 2015 will provide the enabling capacities to help countries progress towards the MDGs. [more]
Geographical Scope: Global Lead Partner: UNEP-UNCTAD Capacity Building Task Force
Summary: Enhance human and institutional capacity of developing countries to deal with issues arising at the intersection of trade liberalization, environmental protection and economic development. The overall aim is to assist beneficiary countries in developing mutually supportive policies that would maximize the net benefits of trade for sustainable development. It also seeks close correlation with the Doha Work Programme as well as the related technical assistance programme administered by the WTO secretariat.
CBTF II is meant as the main vehicle for capacity building activities by UNCTAD and UNEP in trade, environment and development in support of the decisions to be taken by the WSSD. It has a regional emphasis, which accords with the expected outcomes of WSSD with regard to implementation of its work programme. [more]
Geographical Scope: Sub-regional Carribbean Lead Partner: Caribbean Community Secretariat (CARICOM)
Summary: The overall goal for the partnership is "increased and strengthened capacity of regional tertiary institutions to provide skills for the sustainable manage their island environment and natural resources".
This partnership initiative is intended to further advance the development of graduate education in the area of environment and natural resources management. Previously completed training needs assessments and strategies provide the basis for continued development of University of the West Indies and specifically the Centre for Environment and Development to further capacity building as well as to strengthen collaboration and information sharing amongst training institutions and organizations across and beyond the Caribbean..
The proposed strategy for capacity building is based on promoting synergies, partnerships and collaborative delivery at all levels. It will encompass agreed levels and types of training activities and programmes derived from the Training Needs Assessment finding from the 1999/2000 UWICED regional survey recommendations, include training pathways, strategies to supporting research work, competency levels, train-the-trainer strategies and post-graduate level training delivery mechanisms, and ongoing education. [more]
Geographical Scope: Sub-regional Pacific Islands Lead Partner: Government of Australia - National Oceans Office
Summary: This initiative will be closely linked to the Pacific Islands Oceans Initiative (2003-2007), which aims to "assist with the implementation of the Pacific Islands Regional Oceans Policy, to harmonise and build upon ongoing oceans-related programmes implemented within the region, and to identify and implement coordinated programmes of action that will address all priority aspects of the policy".
Australia is also engaged in implementing a broad oceans policy, Australia's Oceans Policy, which provides the framework for integrated ecosystem-based planning and management for all of Australia's marine jurisdictions. The policy is currently being implemented, primarily through the development of regional marine plans.
Australia, through its National Oceans Office, would like to learn from and offer advice and guidance to CROP and the Pacific island countries and territories in relation to the implementation of the Pacific Islands Regional Oceans Policy. Australia recognises that many of the lessons learnt and challenges faced in the development and implementation of regional marine plans and other elements of Australia's Oceans Policy would be of interest to the Pacific. [more]
Geographical Scope: Global Lead Partner: United Nations Centre for Human Settlements (UNCHS) - United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) - International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (ISDR) - Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) - South Pacific Applied Geoscience Comm (SOPAC)
Summary: Main objectives:
To provide technical assistance and build the capacities of SIDS to manage vulnerability and build their resilience through integration of a comprehensive hazard and risk management approach into sustainable development planning. This will include development and operationalisation of measures of vulnerability, hazard identification and assessment, disaster prevention, mitigation and preparedness as well as strengthen disaster response and recovery actions. [more]
Geographical Scope: Sub-regional Caribbean SIDS Lead Partner: Caribbean Community Secretariat (CARICOM)
Summary: The main objectives of the partnership are to:
1) Strengthen the capacity of Caribbean SIDS sanitation systems to provide basic sanitation and health services in an efficient, affordable and accessible manner;
2) Prevent, control and treat related sanitation health problems;
3) Reduce environmental health threats through effective transfer, access and use of environmentally sound technologies;
4) Integrate the sanitation and health concerns of the most vulnerable populations into strategies, policies and programs for poverty eradication and sustainable development;
5) Protect sensitive ecosystems from pollution. [more]
to collapse the Summary of Partnerships.