| The Black Sea is one of the marine areas of the
world, most damaged by human activities. The Black Sea can only be saved if the six
coastal countries, Bulgaria, Georgia, Romania, Russia, Turkey and Ukraine, cooperate fully
on key policy issues. In some cases wider cooperation throughout the seventeen Black Sea
basin countries is required. Prior to the establishment of GEF Black Sea Environmental
Programme in 1993, there was a lack of objective information on the causes of its
environmental crisis and the options available to policy makers for its protection and
restoration. The GEF BSEP enabled an unprecedented exercise in multidisciplinary
information gathering and processing in order to provide the technical basis for a twenty
year Black Sea Strategic Action Plan. This unique study, termed the Black Sea
Transboundary Diagnostic Analysis, involved over two hundred specialists from some forty
institutions in the six coastal countries, together with colleagues from sixteen countries
worldwide. It has proven to be a key element in reforming policy and setting an investment
strategy. It has also provided the basis of an analytical methodology currently being
applied in GEF International Waters Programmes throughout the world and is thus being made
available to a wider readership. |
