Networks, Institutional links and partnerships

Background

CRISP's very philosophy is based on mobilising existing stakeholders and providing them with the financial ability to undertake joint projects and establish partnerships. The objective appears quite innovative on the Pacific scene, where the French-speaking world needs to open up to its English-speaking neighbours.

In addition to overcoming these language-based issues, CRISP endeavours to promote unique synergies between institutions, including NGOs, research organisations, technical government agencies and private consultancy firms. This partnership-oriented approach, driven by France, extends to the region's developed countries, such as Australia and New Zealand first and foremost, but also to a lesser extent Japan and the USA.

It also involves aid donors with the Programme co-ordination unit being tasked with identifying financial partnerships. As it is regional in its scope, the Programme covers both English and French-speaking countries and territories. The Programme's legitimate institutional window onto Pacific countries and territories is SPREP. With regard to French territories, IFRECOR's local committees are special partners for the Programme and, conversely, CRISP acts as a valuable go-between for these committees and the outside, English-speaking world. Also, SPREP receives specific UNF funding to strengthen this inter-government body's activities within French territories.

Latest Progress

The highlight of this area has undeniably been the 2007 Townsville Forum on sustainable coastal resource management in the South Pacific co-funded by Australia and France (cf section on international meetings).

The forum provided an opportunity to a dozen island countries to set their priorities in this area. This was a useful time of discussion and stocktaking, particularly for aid donors (Clua 2008). The Forum also provided an opportunity for collaboration between countries and technical partners that are gradually bearing fruit, particularly with a funding application to WEF through the ADB for approximately M$ 4.5 for 5 Western Pacific countries, ie Palau, FSM, Solomon Islands, PNG and Vanuatu to fund integrated coastal management projects with joint technical support from CRISP and Australia's RRRC. Both bodies met with a team of ADB consultants who were in Vanuatu in March 2007 as part of the design phase for this project that will be picking up on current CRISP endeavours in these countries and possibly extending them to the other countries involved.

ICRI'S latest meeting in Washington in January 2008 received the special attendance of Mr Christian Estrosi, the French Minister of Overseas Countries and Territories who came to express France's particular concern for coral reefs, as signalled, inter alia, by New Caledonia's current application for UNESCO heritage listing, and France's interest in taking part in the ICRI Secretariat after the US-Mexican joint tenure, which is set to expire in mid-2009. The meeting was an opportunity for the CRISP Programme Manager, who had been invited by the Australian delegation to a bilateral meeting with the French delegation, to bring the quality of CRISP's involvement and the role it played internationally in the Pacific region to the Minister's attention.

Brief Review

With regard to CRISP's stated aim of entering into international partnerships, joining ICRI immediately after the Programme's inception in 2004 proved a valuable asset. Attached to the French delegation up until late 2005, the Programme attained the special status of an “ICRI-label network” in 2006, achieving international recognition. As the Programme Manager regularly attended ICRI’s biannual meetings, discussions were initiated with other institutions and partnerships were set up. Most of these involve theWorld Bank’s CRTR project for reef restoration (cf section on reef ecosystem management), the international Reefcheck network for coral reef monitoring with a network being set up in French Polynesia (Lagouy 2006 and 2007) and the American government agency, NOAA, for the social and economic monitoring of the SEM-Pasifika MPA (cf section on stakeholder awareness). CRISP also undeniably owes Australia’s plan to contribute to the Programme, announced in 2005 and implemented in late 2007 after a French-Australian mission to Noumea in January 2007, to its involvement in ICRI.

In addition to the co-ordination unit’s efforts, CRISP’s technical stakeholders entered into partnerships within their specialised areas that gave priority to ventures between French and English-speaking entities, as specified in tenders called by AFD in 2003, as well as to Pacific small island countries who are the only states eligible for French government grants. As a result EPHE and IRD worked closely with USP, leading, for example, to permanent joint thesis supervision arrangements between USP and the University of Perpignan, France. In late 2006, these two stakeholders organised a workshop on island biodiversity under the auspices of CRISP and in partnership with the University of the Ryukyus, Japan, and the University of California, Berkeley Campus, USA, foreshadowing scientific partnerships. The MPA implementation area (Programme Component 1) gave rise to several partnerships, particularly between the French IFRECOR committees and other Pacific countries. One of the projects of this component managed by the FSPI regional NGO received funding of 300,000 euros specifically for exchanges between countries. An initial exchange in late 2007 involved a trip by Solomon Island resource people to Mystery Island, Vanuatu.

Finally, the officer in charge of implementing CRISP projects within SPREP travelled to three French overseas countries and territories and undertook work funded by CRISP

Bibliography

Clua, E., Salvat, B. et C. Wilkinson (2008). "Synthese du Forum sur la gestion durable des ressources dans le Pacifique. Townsville . Australie . Sept. 2007". CRISP report.