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SUSTAINABLE FINANCING OF MPAs IN THE MEDITERRANEAN: A FINANCIAL ANALYSIS
national projects. As accurate data on the funding from international foundations was
not found, the focus was on regional projects generally funded by international NGOs
in the region.
In addition to the resources from international cooperation, national budgets for
MPAs were assessed. Governments allocate some resources from their national
budget as part of the public funding for biodiversity-related areas. Public
expenditures are investments from central government, public agencies and regional
governments. Public expenditures are levied according to the institutional framework
implemented for managing MPAs. Some countries have a centralized system for
which budget is allocated by the central government, usually the Ministry responsible
for the Environment. Others have a more decentralized system, which provides
investments from regional authorities.
At the national level, some resources are provided as private donations or in-kind
contributions allocated on a specific project basis. These resources are not meant to
be integrated into the national budget of the country but mitigate the financial burden
to run specific projects. They have not been considered here.
f) Limitations of the survey
Some difficulties should be highlighted:
Most of the data on ODA financing resources for biodiversity are marked for several
biodiversity-related activities, which entails a risk of double-counting. To mitigate this
problem, projects benefiting from ODA resources were examined in detail and those
specifically related to Coastal and Marine Protected Areas isolated. Moreover, a clear
distinction was made between ODA bilateral cooperation and the GEF (and related
UN agencies).
Data on national expenditures mostly denotes the current operating budget of the
central administrative body, generally the Ministry responsible for the environment, in
charge of coastal and marine issues. This budget supports actions related to
inspections, monitoring and technical studies. These resources are not given to
managers of the MPA but reduce their financial burden for the same activities that
would have otherwise been financed by the MPA.
g) Hypothesis for scenarios for the achievement of Aichi targets
The level of investment needed will depend on the starting point of the institutional structure
used to implement the MPAs and targeted activities, as well as the extent to which they have
political support and are integrated into overall policy. This is true at the early stage of the
development phase of MPAs and becomes a condition for the sustainability of MPAs in their
later stages of development.
The governance structure is mostly related to those investments needed before and within
the implementation period. Some investments will be necessary to make the policy
operational and to monitor and evaluate the system being implemented in order to adapt or
readjust it. Its sustainability will depend on the capacity of the governance system to create
conditions for long-term adaptable systems, both in the environmental field (revised
environmental objectives) and in the social field (adapting user rules according to outcomes).
In the scope of this study, it is assumed that conservation of 10 per cent of coastal and
marine areas in the Mediterranean (Aichi Target 11) would be the result of an ideal MPA
system management at the national level. The ideal management scenario is therefore
defined as the level of funding required to:
May 2015 – Vertigo Lab, for MedPAN, RAC/SPA and WWF Med. Page 37
