The NBSAP and/or NIP should include review, monitoring and evaluation of a country’s implementation activities in order to determine whether CMS and its instruments are bringing about tangible improvement and whether obligations under the instruments are being met.* Monitoring undertaken at the national level is extremely important for gauging the actual impact of CMS and its instruments in their implementation goals. In other words, monitoring gives a measure to a country’s progress and helps to identify specific challenges that a country might face in meeting the objectives of CMS and its instruments. The National Reports, for which the NFP normally oversees the compilation process, serve as the main indication of how CMS Family instruments are being implemented overall, both at the national level as well as at the international level.

*see UNEP Guideline 14(b) on implementation of MEAs: “National implementation plans could be required in a multilateral environmental agreement, which could potentially include environmental effects monitoring and evaluation in order to determine whether a multilateral environmental agreement is resulting in environmental improvement”