THE MINISTERIAL FORUM

14-15 December 2006
1630-1900 and 0830-1530

On 12 December 2003, the Ministerial Forum of the EAS Congress 2003 adopted the Sustainable Development Strategy for the Seas of East Asia (SDS-SEA), with 12 Ministers and Senior Government Officials signing the Putrajaya Declaration. The Putrajaya Declaration is an agreement among signatory countries to work together towards sustainable development of the region’s coasts and oceans. It adopts the SDS-SEA as a common platform for regional cooperation, and as a framework for policy and programme development and implementation at the national and local levels.

Since that historic occasion, the 12 countries have continued to work, individually and collectively, to implement the SDS-SEA. Among their ongoing activities was the formulation of a regional mechanism to coordinate the implementation programme, and to monitor and evaluate progress towards the objectives and targets of the SDS-SEA. The consensus among countries was to establish a regional partnership arrangement, comprised of intergovernmental as well as multi-sectoral partners, building upon the partnership foundation of PEMSEA. The main components of this new partnership arrangement will be: a) the EAS Partnership Council as the governing body; b) the PEMSEA Resource Facility, providing secretariat and technical support services to the Partners; c) the Regional Partnership Fund, supporting capacity building initiatives among lesser developed countries and localities within the region; and d) the EAS Congress/Ministerial Forum, becoming a triennial event for monitoring and evaluating the implementation of the SDS-SEA, facilitating knowledge exchange, advocacy and multi-stakeholder participation, and providing policy direction and commitments for improving and strengthening the implementation of the SDS-SEA.

 

 

The 2006 Ministerial Forum will focus on critical issues affecting the SDS-SEA implementation, such as the roles of multi-agency and multi-sector stakeholders, including nongovernmental organizations and the corporate/private sector. The main purpose of the Forum will be to consider two important documents, namely the Partnership Agreement 2006 and the Partnership Operating Arrangements on the Implementation of the SDS-SEA, as submitted by participating governments and other stakeholders. (The Partnership Agreement 2006 addresses government commitments to achieving priority targets under the SDS-SEA to the year 2015, the composition of the regional mechanism, and a three-year action plan for countries, covering 2007 to 2010. The Partnership Operating Arrangements detail the operating modality of the intergovernmental and multi-sectoral partnership, which has as its main objective the implementation of the SDS-SEA.) In addition, the Forum will receive reports of the outcomes of the International Conference for possible policy considerations.

*Participation to the Ministerial Forum is by invitation only.