The Caricom Secretariat said the first of two workshops on the development and use of a Caribbean Harmonised Reporting Template (CHART) started in St Lucia yesterday aimed at raising awareness of the draft template that is used for streamlining reporting in the Region to biodiversity-related MEAs.
According to a press release, the workshops, funded by the European Union, are executed by the Caribbean hub of the Project for Capacity Building Related to four Multilateral Environmental Agreements (MEAs) in African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) states (the ACP-MEAs project) in collaboration with the Government of Saint Lucia.
The Caribbean Community (Caricom) Secretariat, working in partnership with the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) is the Caribbean hub for the project. Representatives of Caricom member states, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, as well as the African Union Commission and the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme will participate in the workshops.
The MEAs of focus for both workshops are the Convention on Biological Diversity, the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Fauna and Flora, and the Protocol concerning Specially Protected Areas and Wildlife. The workshop will also discuss the use of Integrated Environment Assessment (IEA) tools for mainstreaming those agreements into national policy development.
The two-day workshop on the development and use of CHART which started on Wednesday will also train participants in the use of the template. “Harmonised reporting facilitates information-sharing, helps to ensure that relevant data is available to support decision-making and planning for coordinated MEAs implementation, and reduces the burden of reporting under the various MEAs to which countries are signatories,” the release said. The workshop on MEAs mainstreaming set for January 28-30 will address the importance of building linkages between the MEAs and national development. Participants will have the opportunity to undertake hands-on working sessions on how to use the IEA tools to support the integration of MEAs into decision-making at the economic, social and physical development levels.
