Capacity building workshop for West Asia and North Africa on PoWPA implementation

Background

The sub-regional workshop for West Asia and North Africa on Capacity Building for Implementation of the CBD Programme of Work on Protected Areas (PoWPA) is organized by the Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), the Technical Secretariat of the Council of Arab Ministers Responsible for the Environment (CAMRE) of the League of Arab States, the Regional Office for West Asia of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP-ROWA), and the PoWPA Friends Consortium, and is hosted by the Ministry of Environment and Water of the United Arab Emirates. Its objective is to build capacity to: create national action plans for PoWPA implementation; access funding based on these action plans; and strengthen implementation of the PoWPA on the themes of governance, climate change, sustainable financing, and valuation of the costs and benefits of protected areas.

Objectives

The objectives of the workshop are to (a) provide an overview and conduct needs assessment of current capacity-building requirements, tools and approaches to implement PoWPA and decision X/31 on protected areas and to achieve target 11 and other targets of the Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011-2020; and (b) strengthen the skills and knowledge of protected area functionaries and others who
implement PoWPA, through an exchange of experiences, sharing of tools and available resources, and capacity-building in (i) protected areas and climate change adaptation and mitigation, including integration of protected areas into wider land- and seascapes and sectors; (ii) developing or revising national action plans for implementing PoWPA; (iii) marine protected areas; (iv) governance; (v) valuing protected area costs and benefits, including their ecosystem services; and (vi) funding opportunities under the fifth replenishment period of the Global Environment Facility (GEF 5).