active · Governance

Institutional arrangements for the governance of shared natural resources and transboundary environmental issues: Transboundary Institutional Mechanisms (TIM)

Environmental challenges are typically not confined by national borders and often require concerted responses by groups of countries. In its Outcome Document ‘The Future We Want’, the Rio+20 Summit explicitly recognized the importance of regional and sub-regional efforts towards sustainable development. Therefore, this project aims at increasing effectiveness and coherence in environmental governance by the countries concerned, with the main intermediate outcome of increasing the number of strengthened mechanisms to address the governance of shared natural resources and transboundary environmental issues among countries.UNEP’s convening power at the sub-regional and regional levels gives it a unique position to support countries in enhancing transboundary cooperation pertaining to the environment. Within the context of the Environmental Governance Sub-programme, this project will focus on supporting countries that mandated UNEP accordingly, in establishing and strengthening institutional mechanisms for addressing common interests in shared natural resources, transboundary ecosystems and common environmental problems. In response to priorities emanating from regional, subregional intergovernmental and other forums, this project will achieve its objective through 2 components with different levels of engagement depending on institutionalization level of transboundary cooperation:1.Where no transboundary institutional mechanisms exist, UNEP will support the development of new mechanisms for transboundary environmental governance;2.Where transboundary institutional mechanisms already exist but require further strengthening, UNEP will enhance existing mechanisms for transboundary environmental governance.