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meet with senior officials within the Ministry of Marine Affairs and Fisheries to better understand their needs and likelihood to adopt the MPA PRO model.
Glenn Ricci is assigned temporarily in Bali to lead several leveraged USAID initiatives in which CRC is involved CTI and the IMACSIndonesia Projects. CRC will optimize his
locale to enable a series of meetings with officials and provide technical assistance in the area of developing certification programs with the long-term hopes that they join the
international MPA PRO network.
1.2 Changes in Program Activities WIO Region
The major change in activities was due to the low applicant levels for the Level 2 South African Certification planned for April. The offering is now going to be linked with five
Kenyans and potentially host the event in Kenya in mid-June. As this is the second time we received low numbers of applicant in South Africa we are now going to focus more on
working with the management agencies to incorporate the competences into their systems. The rate of producing Level 3 program materials was slowed by the challenge of contracting
suitable experts in the adult assessment field. We have resolved these issues and are now working at a brisk pace to get back on schedule. However we want significant buy-in and
input from MPA leaders globally on this level so we will need to give adequate time for this expanded review process. This technique is twofold. One is to get quality input for a final
design. The second is to build recognition internationally of our program and methods for certification based capacity building of senior MPA professionals. As a result, our first Level
3 Certification Assessment Event will be rescheduled into FY12 and we will seek opportunities to overlap the event with other regional events.
The redesign of the WIO-COMPAS website will be ready for launching by the beginning of May. Improvements include MPA PRO case studies, highlighting our endorsements and
partners, maps showing the distribution of MPA PROs across the region, promotion of our assessors, security updates, simplified administrator controls, and a general facelift to the
design and layout.
West Africa
West Africa is the newest region to express an interest in the MPA PRO model, and during this reporting period confirmed its plans to have at least one or two individuals from the
region one funded by “BaNafaa” the Gambia-Senegal Sustainable Fisheries Project funded by the USAID West Africa Regional Mission, and WWF-WAMER is considering using its
own resources to support another trained as assessors through attendance at the 2011 Level 2 Event now planned for June. This would be a first step in either making the decision that
those from other African regions could still participate in, be certified by, and be part of the network of the WIO-COMPAS program, or in deciding whether West Africa should develop
its own regional version of the MPA PRO model. At this time, a decision as to which path to follow remains undecided.
Comment [ BC3] : Cannot say anything n official
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Latin America and Caribbean
Although there was early interest from a group of leaders in Latin America to adaptadopt and bring the MPA PRO Network program to the region, a lack of funding from other donors
has slowed this initial effort. Continued outreach and networking, however, is helping to identify and build new partnerships—partnerships that may have access to the types and
levels of resources that are needed to implement the MPA PRO program in a region. This includes but is not limited to the budding partnership with UCI and their IUCN initiatives.
Internal discussion amongst the CRC SUCCESS team has included the potential to test the waters for interest from prior CRC and SUCCESS partners in Mexico, where interest in
MPAs is strong and which has a critical mass of sites and professionals. We have learned that they too are working with NOAA on a certificate training program. This idea will be further
explored later this year. We now have a brochure in Spanish which should facilitate the dissemination of the concept and initiative.
Our partners in the region are also encouraging us to expand the geographic focus to the Caribbean as well since they have available funding and professional staff managing MPAs.
We will likely focus on that border area where the two regions overlap as a starting point and build out from there.
Coral Triangle CT Region
CRC received an invitation from Alan White to make a presentation on the MPA PRO initiative at the upcoming May 2011 “regional exchange” on MPA management
effectiveness in the Philippines. Now that Glenn has been in the region and talking with partners it appears that the participants at the event will mainly be NGOs and researchers.
This is not the target audience for our certification program. Based on experience at other events with similar participants, we have found that our program is of greatest interest and
value to those working in MPAs. We propose to instead reallocate those funds to meet individually with the appropriate government officials in Indonesia and Malaysia as those are
the two countries most suitable for potentially adopting the MPA PRO model.
Globally
In early February CRC and USAID had some discussions about some related activities happening in Latin America and Asia on MPA certificatescertification efforts. Our concern
is that several groups will be working on promoting isolated certification programs that dilute the influence of a globally recognized and coordinated certification system. To avoid this
likely potential, CRC has been requested by USAID to explore the value and interest of colleagues to meet and discuss the multiple initiatives occurring globally and how we could
forge linkages. Key organizations include NOAA and IUCN at this point. It was proposed that a meeting be convened in 2011 in Washington D.C. Updates on this activity will be
provided in the coming months.
1.3 Contacts with USAID MissionsBureaus
