National Environmental Action Plan The development of the National Environmental Action Plan in Turkmenistan started in October 1999.  UNDP had an ongoing program of assistance at the time (the National Environment Program of Turkmenistan - NEPT), focusing on a range of activities which included, among others, development of the State of Environment report and the 2nd edition of the Red Data Book of Turkmenistan.  The NEAP was started within the framework of the NEPT, and its offices in the Ministry of Nature Protection (maintained by UNDP) were used for staffing a small core team.  The World Bank joined the process in March 2000 by providing a PHRD grant to the Ministry for Institutional Capacity Building in Environmental Management.  The grant was used partly to support local experts in preparing a national environmental strategy, and partly to finance an international firm to carry out a legal, regulatory and institutional needs assessment. The Bank also received consultant trust funds from the Swiss government to assist with the review of the draft NEAP and provide quality assurance.  The PHRD grant funds and the Swiss assistance were indeed very useful. With the help of the grant funds, the NEPT office in the Ministry could be considerably expanded to establish teams of local experts who prepared several background reports on the key environmental issues.  The UNDP also provided assistance to the Ministry in organizing eight workshops and several smaller group discussions and trainings. The NEAP started with fairly extensive consultations. The first compilation of issues was done through written communications between the Ministry of Nature Protection and representatives (nearly one hundred) from sector ministries and regional government bodies, and academic and research institutions. NGOs participated in the process to a limited extent. Private sector participation was virtually absent.  The early proposals from the stakeholders were consolidated and combined under seven thematic topics and discussed at several national and Velayet (provincial) level workshops. Multidisciplinary teams of local experts working groups analyzed the environmental issues and drafted the thematic reports. Bank staff and consultants reviewed the draft reports and provided comments.  The thematic reports were edited by an editorial committee chaired by the Minister of Nature Protection.  The final edited version of the NEAP document was compiled by this committee. Overall the process was a rather difficult one, with consultants and Bank staff struggling to work with local expert groups to pull together a document that could identify and evaluate the country's most significant environmental problems.  The final document had to be consistent with existing policy from the "top" and approved by the President, so there was little margin to be too critical or to prioritize issues in any manner that would contradict existing policy.  This presented considerable difficulty for the Bank team in being able to engage with the Ministry in any meaningful way.  In course of time, progress was made and the Ministry completed the NEAP which in its final form presents, on the one hand, a fair degree of analysis on some key issues, and on the other, some fairly questionable proposals (such as the President's plan to build the Turkmen drainage lake).  All these factors notwithstanding, it can be concluded that the NEAP has provided a better understanding of issues in the country and some capacity was developed during the process in getting working groups together to talk about issues.