Progress report for
Mejoramiento de las Capacidades Atraves del Plan Integral de los Humedales en Panamá
Achievement at a glance
The CCI partnership has two overarching goals: (1) “20-by-20”: To conserve and effectively manage at least 20% of the marine and coastal environment by 2020. (2) Sustainable finance: To implement sustainable finance mechanisms that provide long-term funding to sustainably manage marine and coastal areas. The two goals will be achieved through establishing public-private partnerships, with the aim to protect the Caribbean region's marine and coastal ecosystems, while also securing a prosperous economy. The following key results have been achieved: 1) Successes towards the CCI Goals show through countries that continue to declare protected areas while working towards their effective management. Along with conservation milestones, the launching of complex sustainable finance architecture will ensure longevity of CCI achievements for future generations. 2) Establishing strong boards of the trust funds has taken time, but it has been important. This includes a majority of non-government board members. Progress has been seen over time, and the CBF dashboard of monitoring the trust funds are showing this. 3) The CBF dashboard has also become an important way of how the funds are monitoring themselves, and have started using it in their own process.Challenges faced in implementation
The first is that coordination is a challenge due to limited resources and can be overcome somewhat by dialogue. A second challenge is that receiving finances is vital to maintain an active role, staffing and to organise events. Final challenge is, when building a partnership from scratch, quick fixes are not possible. In the end, a baseline is needed to report on progress, so time can be challenging for small teams if targets are ambitious.Beneficiaries
With the CCI partnership, the benefits are mainly the creation and consolidation of marine and coastal protected areas, as well as the creation of financial structures in countries. This benefits communities that depend economically on natural resources provided by these areas. Further, the commitment of private sector companies also enhances the chances that concrete benefits are delivered to communities, through the adoption of best practices and voluntary actions linked to corporate social responsibility. Countries are pushing themselves in reaching targets through ‘coopetition’ where countries are both collaborative and competitive. Other countries are also moving ahead without CCI support, yet the greatest achievements are in partner countries. The NCTFs have also been successful through their autonomous structure, which means they are moving at their own pace. The support of strong national leaders has been helpful.