A series of three workshops took place to help prepare countries in the Central and Eastern Mediterranean to respond to pollution incidents.
Participants from 11 countries attended the final workshop, which followed an initial online workshop, as well as several practical country-specific sessions on the use of the ARPEL Readiness Evaluation Tool for Oil Spills and the Sea Alarm Self-Assessment Tool (SAT) for Oiled Wildlife Response (between September-November).
The series of activities was organized by the Regional Marine Pollution Emergency Response Centre for the Mediterranean Sea (REMPEC), under the auspices of IMO’s Integrated Technical Cooperation Programme (ITCP), with the support of Sea Alarm, ITOPF, ARPEL, and Polaris Applied Sciences.
The trio trilogy of activities enabled each country to acquire practical and focused experience on the use of both tools.
The participants agreed on conclusions and recommendations, notably to urge all contracting parties to use these tools, to improve preparedness and response across the region and to capitalise the outcome of countries’ assessments to implement improvement processes at sub-regional level.
The workshop also recognised the instrumental role of REMPEC in coordinating multi-institutional processes and strengthening cooperation in the Mediterranean region.
