The Maison des Oceans in Paris provided the venue of the first meeting of the International Coral Reef Policy Advisory Committee on 19th and 20th June 2018. The committee, comprising of national experts from 11 important coral reef countries and convened by UN Environment, met to analyze and review the methodology for a global and regional analysis of policy instruments and governance mechanisms related to the protection and sustainable management of coral reefs. The analysis was requested by UN Member States through a resolution on sustainable coral reef management of the United Nations Environment Assembly (Resolution 2/12, Paragraph 10). The methodology was prepared by experts from the Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions at Duke University, under guidance from UN Environment and the International Coral Reef Initiative. The findings of the policy and governance analysis will be presented at the next United Nations Environment Assembly in 2019 and will provide recommendations to Member States on strengthening relevant policies and governance mechanisms.
The meeting in Paris successfully concluded with recommendations made on how to improve the methodology and analysis (view the report). A timeline was also set for completing the analysis, with a first draft of the analysis report to be presented and reviewed by committee members at the next meeting in October in Bangkok. A final report will be presented at the International Coral Reef Initiative meeting in December 2018. The report will then be synthesized and translated into UN languages for presentation at UNEA-4 in 2019.
