Coral Triangle Initiative Nears Implementation of Monitoring and Evaluation System

The further enactment of the Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) Operations Manual of the Coral Triangle Initiative on Coral Reefs Fisheries and Food Security (CTI-CFF) has successfully been pushed, with all member countries under CTI endorsing it while establishing a timetable for an M&E implementation.
The M&E Working Group (MEWG) presented its report during the 9th CTI-CFF Senior Officials Meeting (SOM 9) held 26–27 November 2013 in Manila.

The CTI-CFF is composed of countries covering the Coral Triangle, a vast tropical marine ecosystem in Southeast Asia and the Pacific. Member states are Indonesia, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, the Solomon Islands, and Timor-Leste.

The Philippine delegation, composed of executives of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources-Protected Area and Wildlife Bureau led by Theresa Mundita Lim, highlighted the M&E framework, benchmarks, process flow, and preliminary capacity assessment which would be crucial to evaluate the effectiveness of coral reef conservation efforts in the region.

The M&E also plays a critical role in the establishment of the proposed permanent CTI Regional Secretariat, which coordinates all conservation programs and measures the results to ensure continued success.

The MEWG report also stressed that there are still areas that need to be completed for the M&E Operations Manual to work. These include the endorsement of a proposed Ecosystem Approach to Fisheries Management, organization of the Seascapes and Threatened Species working groups to be finalized, testing of all indicators using one round of measures, and completion of baseline measurements.

Along with the M&E, the MEWG reported that it is in the final stages of publishing the first Regional State of the Coral Triangle Repor, which should give an overall portrait of the status of coral reef systems in the six member countries and the efforts being conducted.

With the endorsement of the M&E, country members’ representatives attending the 9th CTI-CFF SOM are also acknowledging the need for each country to provide spatial data to the Coral Triangle Atlas to populate the M&E system and support national and regional tracking of progress.

Source: Coral Triangle Knowledge Network