Key stakeholders in the Asia and the Pacific region met in Hanoi Vietnam for a four-day GEF-UNDP Climate Change Project Management Workshop on 12-15 April 2005. The aim was to prepare project partners in operational and technical management to maximize the stated project impacts on the ground level. "The objective of this workshop is to share new and upcoming guidance from the GEF on climate changes focal area and ensure a common understanding of operational responsibilities, linkages to global environmental concerns and national development objectives," said Ms. Nandita Mongia, Regional Team Leader, GEF/UNDP office in the Asia and the Pacific. "Sharing experiences and lessons learnt among GEF projects proponents in the participating countries will be a very enriching experience for all present at the workshop, especially for project implementation. Learning to use the logical framework to design and monitor impact indicators will enhance future programme performance". The primary challenges now were related to the implementation and the effective project management in each specific case. In order to promote an effective exchange of implementation and project management experiences, share theory and lessons learned on project management, organizer invited key stake holders like project staff, government/executing agency staff and country office staff etc from 13 countries in the region, total about 60-70 people.

    The meeting included several themes, such as developing capacity and/or solving problems project management, project finances and budgets monitoring & evaluation policies and reports. The GEF-UNDP project in the Asia-Pacific related to Cleaner mobility in urban India, Fuel efficiency in road transport sector, Productive use of renewable energy etc. Fuel cell bus is considered as the leading direction of clean transport in the future, while it is a key component of GEF-UNDP climate change project programme as well. Ms. Wang Ju, the representative of national PMO of China Demonstration for Fuel Cell Bus Commercialization Project, participated in the meeting. She discussed the project schedule and implementation with Ms. Nandita Mongia, especially changed ideas on project Part II application. Ms. Nandita Mongia also discussed with other China GEF-UNDP projects representatives at the meeting to review the projects implementation.