Ningbo Water and Environment Project - under WB/GEF Partnership Investment Fund for Pollution Reduction in the LME of East Asia

The proposed project would fall under the World Bank/GEF East Asia Land-Based Pollution Reduction Investment Fund Project (the Partnership Fund), presently under preparation. Objective of the Fund is to reduce local, national and trans-boundary degradation of East Asia’s marine ecosystems due to land-based pollution. It would focus on the countries involved in and 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 above-referenced three major gaps in regional land-based pollution control efforts. The Fund'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 Ningbo Water and Environment Project will be implemented by Ningbo Municipality, which is located 175 km south of Shanghai, borders Hangzhou Bay, and is China’s second-largest port. Investments in water supply and pollution control in the municipality have lagged far behind its rapid economic development, so its coastline is severely polluted. Its local governments have now declared pollution reduction a priority and adopted a progressive, sub-regional and multi-sector approach to it. The project would implement that approach, and demonstrate cost-effective and innovative solutions, including a constructed wetland for municipal wastewater treatment and a natural wetland conservation area for non-point source pollution control, biodiversity protection, and environmental education. It also would produce multi-focal area benefits and have high replication potential. The lessons learned from the project would be disseminated throughout the region through the organization of workshops and dissemination of documents, thereby enhancing the prospects for replication. For all these reasons, the proposed project is an excellent candidate for support from the Fund.