GRASP The Great Apes Survival Partnership (GRASP) was launched in 2001 by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) to help ensure the permanent survival of gorillas, chimpanzees, bonobos, and orangutans and their habitat in Africa and Asia. GRASP is a unique alliance of national governments, research institutions, United Nations (UN) agencies, conservation organizations, and private sector supporters. The GRASP Secretariat is co-hosted by UNEP and the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). GRASP is an innovative tool to improve livelihoods through the conservation of great apes as flagship species.
Great apes face numerous threats, including habitat loss, illegal hunting, disease, and illegal trade, among others. These threats are addressed through GRASP’s six thematic components and by a combination of 1.) intervention at a high political level; 2.) policy work and collection and contribution to best practices and lessons learned; and 3.) direct support to development planning processes in great ape range States. The six GRASP thematic components (“advocacy,” “law enforcement and judiciary,” “response to disease threats,” “habitat protection and enhancement,” “conflict-sensitive conservation” and “Green Economy”) reflect this multi-disciplinary approach.  This Project Document will serve as the umbrella project for the work of the GRASP Secretariat, some of the above thematic components will be executed through other stand alone project documents (i.e. three stand alone projects funded respectively by IKI, GEF and Luxemburg) while the  work of this ProDoc will focus on three of the thematic components: Law enforcement and judiciary will be fulfilled by the work of the Apes Seizures Database (component 1 of this ProDoc); Advocacy will be fulfilled by component 2 of this ProDoc which is achieved through activities conducted under all activities; Response to disease threats will be fulfilled by the activities under component 3 of this ProDoc which included two outputs “Preventing the next pandemic: human and wildlife health monitoring and formulation of best practice guidelines and inclusion of health indicators in development planning” and “Best Practice Guidelines for Great Ape Conservation and Engaging Lending Banks and the Private Sector to Reduce the risk of transmission of COVID-19 and other diseases.”.
This project will address global threats to great ape populations and habitats by leveraging the collective resources of its partners. The GRASP Secretariat assesses the state of biodiversity critical to ecosystem function and resilience and develops, tests, and implements tools and methodologies to raise national capacity for the protection of great apes and the landscapes and ecosystems they inhabit. These outputs are in line with the 2022/2023 programme of work under the Nature Action sub-programme, and UNEP’s Medium Term Strategy. 
Note to file: GRASP is a registered WSSD Type II partnership, UNEP is a member of GRASP and hosting the secretariat. The secretariat work is covered under this project document. Different from other project documents, the secretariat work is an ongoing activity, similar to other secretariats UNEP is hosting. UNEP has a legal obligation to support the secretariat unless partners decide to close the partnership.