UNEP and Oil for Development enter strategic partnership

Weak environmental management of the petroleum sector is a challenge in many OfD partner countries. Especially new petroleum provinces often struggle with fragmented institutions, low management capacity and limited knowledge of the petroleum sector. UN Environment has particular experience delivering support to capacity development in fragile and vulnerable states.

- Through the partnership agreement with UN Environment, we expect to be able to provide for even more competence transfer and capacity development of environmental institutions, says leader of Norad’s Oil for Development secretariat, Petter Stigset.

Mutual sharing of expertise

OfD will be able to draw on UN Environment’s in-house experts as well as a large global network of partners and consultants, which complements the specialized assistance provided by Norwegian institutions. This will allow for optimization of the time, focus and resources of Norwegian experts.

Target areas for the collaboration are capacity needs assessments, basic trainings in environmental management of the petroleum value chain, Environmental Impact Assessments, as well as the support to national dialogue and awareness raising.

One of the first countries to benefit from the agreement is Myanmar, where a long term UNEP consultant has been hired to assist the Ministry of Environment with reviewing and handling Environmental Impact Assessments (EIAs) in accordance with the newly established sector specific EIA guidelines.

Norad will contribute 23 million NOK to UNEP in the period 2016-2020.