This component focuses on selecting Marine Protected Areas as pilots to serve as Marine Managed Areas―to include zonation and multiple uses consistent with local community needs and benefits using a participatory, community-based process. Activities within this component include the provision of training and demonstrations necessary to implement, use and update marine areas management plans in cooperation with national implementing agencies in the PERSGA network. This component also focuses on improving the capacity of member countries to share information and select the most appropriate marine protected/managed area models (MPAs/MMAs) based on current capacity and area(s) of comparative advantage and environmental features. It will also train community members in rights based MPA management to be able to effectively review, update and implement marine protection and management plans, and transition to multiple use MMAs.

Through this Component, PERSGA will strengthen its regional MPA network and also support member countries in developing more holistic, rights and ecosystem-based approaches whereby local communities can be empowered to balance resource use with sustainability and help provide stronger stewardship of marine resources adjacent to them. All PERSGA member countries are invited to participate in the training to the pilot communities.

• Build the capacity of community stakeholders and institutions involved in MPAs in rights based MPA management and MMA zoning
• Update master plans with community and other stakeholder input and implement the master plans. This includes developing actionable incentives; incentives will be identified with communities based on the tools available in the countries, such as subsidies, tax
• breaks for fisheries incomes, licensing etc.; boundary demarcation and monitoring; building capacity for the implementation at the institutional level
• Develop a series of engagements/exchanges between MPA authority staff from one PERSGA member country to another. These will include lessons (both successes and challenges) that one jurisdiction can share with another. Strengths can be celebrated/shared and weaknesses can be examined for possible ways in which they may be improved based on exchange of information and knowledge
• Develop education and public awareness materials that highlight the challenges and success of community-based management of MMAs.

Component two provides institutional and technical capacity needed for communities to use and protect living marine resources to increase net benefits derived from the resources in a sustainable manner. The capacity of community and user group will be built to understand trade-offs associated with development and the costs and benefits to the community, and to organize as user groups around these uses and their rights identified under component 1. They will also be trained in the monitoring of the uses and their impacts on the resources, particularly on fisheries to support informed decisions by communities. Through a community-driven process, the selected coastal communities will receive support to identify and develop sub-projects for alternative livelihood initiatives to reduce pressure on the resources and improve benefits to the community members. On–the-ground activities will be developed by local communities and congruent with national priorities. Consultants or NGOs experienced in community driven fisheries and marine resource management will help facilitate community capacity building for MPA management engagement and development of sub-projects.

• Fish processing activities which involves the preparation of fish for direct consumption or for preservation. Traditional fish processing activities include gutting, washing the fish, splitting, filleting, sticking the fish and smoking
• Small scale aquaculture activities for production of pearl shells in Sudan
• Designation of hiking trails/ camping sites for eco-tourism within the National Parks- this is relevant to site selection in critical habitats
• Activity supporting recreational fishing/ snorkeling etc. for tourism purposes: through tent for gathering, jetty and boats
• Structure for visitor center built from natural materials
• Workshop for women group for producing and selling artisanal products – establish structure from natural materials
• Enabling tour guiding through licensing and training, potentially providing boats
• Training and certifying community members as rangers

• Build capacity in communities to understand the current uses and resource benefits, and how these are distributed within the community, including establishing baseline of status of the marine environment;
• Build capacity of user groups including fisheries cooperatives in monitoring their resource uses and impacts; establish a community monitoring manual and follow up
• Support identification and planning of sustainable economic activities of marine resources and demonstrate small scale, low impact alternative livelihood sub-projects that are compliant with all environmental and social safeguards and upon which the community has reached consensus.
• Strengthen regional community participation through education and knowledge sharing through study tours, to share pilots on rights and responsibilities to improve community compliance and build ownership for resource protection and sustainability, as well as the implementation of monitoring, control and surveillance systems for fisheries.

This component builds on ongoing monitoring activities and help in standardizing parameters and monitoring approaches between the participating countries, making data comparable and sharable through the strengthening of a regional network of MPAs. It will support the expansion of monitoring to include socio-economic data, especially for fishery and MPA communities. Capacity building will also be strengthened through workshops and knowledge exchanges.

Specific sites selected by the National Steering Committees (see project structure and management) will be monitored during the project, which will include MPAs and MMAs within the regional network and will be geared to enhance the capacity of PERSGA and member countries in concert with their communities. This presents an opportunity to leverage the latest knowledge and monitoring indicators in fisheries management to engage in supra-regional knowledge sharing on fisheries and marine resources monitoring. Monitoring of baseline data and other variables between MPAs and the pilot MMAs under components 1&2 will allow for comparison between the outcomes of the project intervention in the selected sites versus no intervention. This will provide a blue print for lessons learned from applying the EBM and rights based approach in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden which can be scaled up to the entire regional MPA network.

• Use SAP I standard survey methods manual of 2004 and other relevant manuals as a basis for conducting a gap analysis of research and monitoring capacity in each country, review of current parameters applied to monitoring at the national and community levels.
• Conduct workshops between marine research and monitoring institutes on harmonization of research and monitoring parameters to establish regionally harmonized manual and implement harmonized monitoring through community members’ and agencies’ monitoring activities
• Organize a training workshop for scientists, research students, MMA managers and community leaders from the communities in collaboration with international bodies such as IUCN and the Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network (GCRMN); discuss lessons from the regional harmonization and the community pilots in these meetings and other outreach material
  Supporting establishment of a standardized integrated database (of socioeconomic, ecological, biological, chemical and physical variables
• Enhance collaboration with the countries for collection of available data from current monitoring activities for enriching a regional database of environmental ecosystem variables
  Inter-calibration of monitoring methods and sharing experience among countries on specific topics of interest, focusing for example on specific monitoring needs at hot spots
• Updated mapping of significant habitats and anthropogenic threats (including sensitivity mapping for oil spills and other pollution hazards and establishment of Before-After-Control-Impact (BACI) monitoring sites).

PERSGA has a role to play with public awareness by raising the profile of stakeholder engagement at the country and community level and how progress will be made over the course of the project. PERSGA will provide leadership at a high level in communicating successes and providing guidance to member governments and to continue to galvanize support for applying EBM principles elsewhere in the Region. Scientifically informed management is also crucial for a well informed public, and the monitoring component will also endeavor to reach the wider community.

This component is to support the GEF project with technical, administration, procurement, financial management, project monitoring and evaluation and environmental and social impact monitoring. This includes cost of training of PERSGA and at the local project management level in the administrative, environmental and social aspects mentioned. The project will be executed by PERSGA, and will comply with GEF IW and World Bank reporting requirements (e.g. providing a GEF-IW webpage consistent with IW:LEARN), provide IW Experience Notes, submit a GEF IW tracking tool at project start, provide for routine M&E processes, external Mid-Term and Terminal Evaluations, and project closure, provide lessons learned and other project information to IW-LEARN, and attend GEF IW Biennial Conferences.