World Bank/GEF Partnership Investment Fund for Pollution Reduction in the Large Marine Ecosystems of East Asia (Tranche 1 of 3 tranches)

The objective of this proposed World Bank/GEF East Asia Land-Based Pollution Reduction Investment Fund Project (the Partnership Fund) is to reduce local, national and trans-boundary degradation of East Asia’s marine ecosystems due to land-based pollution. It would help implement the action plans that are emerging from the GEF-supported planning efforts for the South China Sea and the Yellow Sea Large Marine Ecosystems, and the national and local commitments facilitated by the GEF/UNDP/IMO PEMSEA Project (Partnerships for Environmental Management of the Seas of East Asia). Its strategic objective would be to help address the three major gaps in ongoing regional land-based pollution control efforts, which are concentrated in a few large cities and in publicly-owned and managed waste-water treatment facilities. These gaps are: (i) pollution from secondary cities and their industrial complexes, (ii) agricultural pollution, and (iii) private investment and public/private partnerships for pollution reduction The project’s development goal would be to promote sustainable development of the coastal areas of the East Asia region by reducing land-based pollution of its rivers and seas. Its global environment goal would be to promote the environmental sustainability of several of East Asia’s large marine ecosystems by reducing land-based pollution of them. The Partnership would establish a World Bank-implemented, GEF-financed Investment Fund to Address Land-Based Pollution of the Large Marine Ecosystems of East Asia, the first five-year phase of which would be capitalized with $70-80 million of GEF resources. The Fund would co-finance: (a) a series of large-scale publicly-managed, World Bank co-financed pollution-reduction investment projects or programs in regional land-based pollution “hot-spots”; and (b) a revolving fund or funds to stimulate and co-finance site-specific private and/or public-private land-based pollution investments, particularly in the manufacturing and agro-industrial sectors, also in regional land-based pollution hot spots. It would be loosely modeled on the World Bank/GEF Nutrient Reduction Investment Fund for the Danube/Black Sea Basin, which was established in 2002 and has catalyzed over $400 million worth of anti-pollution measures.