Assessment of Assessments of the Marine Environment
The United Nations General Assembly in 2005 endorsed the need for a Regular Process for global reporting and assessment of the state of the marine environment. The start-up phase is an assessment of assessments of the marine environment.

The Assessment of Assessments is being carried out by a Group of Experts.

The goal is to identify

• Gaps in data availability
• Gaps in geographic coverage of existing assessments
• Gaps in the scope of existing assessments
• Critical knowledge uncertainties where future research is needed.

In addition the Assessment should identify best practices and approaches including assessment methodologies and the best means to make the Regular Process relevant to policy without prescribing management or policy responses.

The Group of Experts met in March 2007 and again in November 2007. They have developed a set of criteria for assessing the existing assessments of the marine environment and used these criteria to develop a questionnaire to be filled out for marine assessments worldwide. The questions regarding the assessment process look at factors determining the credibility, legitimacy and policy relevance of the assessments and also evaluate the usefulness and communication process.

Jill Jäger was nominated by UNEP to the Group of Experts, together with Ines Omann she is evaluating the results of questionnaire to find examples of best practice in marine assessments.