The Caricom Secre-tariat will be hosting a national workshop for customs and border control officers on Multilateral Environ-mental Agreements (MEAs) and their enforcement from March 24 to 26.
The session is being delivered under the Project for Capacity-Building related to in African, Caribbean and Pacific Countries in partnership with the Guyana Revenue Authority (GRA). It is expected that there will be approximately 35 participants from the Customs Department, Ministry of Environment, the Guyana Hydrometeoro-logical Department, the Environmental Protec-tion Agency, and related organisations, a statement from the Caricom Secretariat said. There will also be expert presenters from the Basel Convention Regio-nal Centre for Training and Technology Transfer for the Caribbean. The meeting will be held in the GRA’s Training Room at its Camp Street office.
According to Project Coordinator, Caribbean Hub Capacity Building ACP-MEAs, Dr Thérèse Yarde, the workshop is targeted specifically at Customs Officers and Border Controls officials, to raise their awareness about their role in enforcing MEAs that are intended to control trade in environmentally sensitive commodities, such as hazardous chemicals, GMOs, endangered species of wildlife, and to build their capacity to play this role effectively.
The workshop will be delivered using a Customs Handbook and learning kit developed by the Caricom Secretariat in 2012.
The Handbook has been disseminated in hard copy and in electronic format to Customs Administrations in all Caricom member states. The first Customs workshop under the project was held at the World Customs Organisation Regional Training Centre in the Dominican Republic, in July 2012.
The Caricom Secretariat is the Hub for the Caribbean sub-component of the Project for Capacity-Building related to in African, Caribbean and Pacific Countries, which is currently in its second phase. The first phase ran from 2009-2014, and Phase 2 started in this year.
The objective of the project is to enhance Caribbean countries’ capacity to implement multilateral environmental agreements, and so to improve countries’ management of their environment and natural resources.
This is being done through training, technical assistance, raising awareness and policy support and advisory services. The project is funded by the European Union through the ACP Secretariat. The United Nations Environment Programme is the overall management and coordination agency for the project in all three regions (Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific).