Project Overview

The project goal is to support improved sustainable management of Kuwait’s environment as well as its natural resources, and to contribute towards the development and implementation of comprehensive and integrated environmental strategies and policies based on the Environment Protection Law (EPL) which Kuwait introduced in 2014. The Law carries the ambitious vision of improved environmental protection across all development sectors, and is a critical turning point for environmental governance in the country, as Kuwait commits to UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as well as the Multilateral Environmental Agreements (MEAs).

The program sees the UNDP work closely with the General Secretariat of the Supreme Council for Planning and Development (GSSCPD) and the Kuwait Environment Public Authority (KEPA), as well as the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), to set an enabling environment for the implementation of the EPL, providing an enhanced mandate that can set the required compliance, implementation, and enforcement of the Law.

UNDP supports the project through conducting an assessment of Kuwait’s current implementation of the Law, including formal (regulations, guidelines) and informal (cultural practices or behaviour) rules or practices, in order to best identify key challenges in enforcement and compliance as well as the current training or capacity building needs to improve systems or address achievement gaps. To this end, UNDP’s objectives include the preparation of a national adaptation plan, an awareness campaign on priority environment issues, and assist in developing locally contextualized SDG indicators for more impact.

Project Highlights

So far, UNDP has completed its draft gap analyses and user surveys of any existing environmental information systems. UNDP has also completed an assessment of the enforcement and compliance regulatory frameworks, in order to develop the indicators to assess implementation of the EPL. UNDP is also assessing national readiness for the same, reappropriating indicators and studying the local capacity and training needs. UNDP has also recently held a workshop on the “Dimension of the Environmental Sustainable Development Goals.” And, together with the government of Kuwait and other partners, the following can be achieved:

1. Participation in Multilateral Environmental Agreements (MEAs) and Internationally Agreed Development Goals (IADGs) is strengthened
2. Environmental Information Systems and capacity is enhanced