A meeting to update South Asia’s regional plan for oil and chemical pollution preparedness and response is underway in Male, Maldives. Senior officials from Bangladesh, India, Maldives, Pakistan and Sri Lanka are sharing their national experiences and consolidating updates to the plan with a view to finalizing it.
The event includes a regional training workshop on hazardous and noxious substance (HNS) spills preparedness and response. Moving forward, the participants will also identify future training needs and develop a three-year training programme to enhance the region’s spill preparedness and response capacity.
The meeting is the final activity of a project financed by the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (NORAD), implemented by IMO through its regional partner – the South Asia Cooperative Environment Programme (SACEP). The project’s overall objective is to implement two key IMO treaties covering pollution prevention – the OPRC Convention and the OPRC-HNS Protocol – in the South Asia region.
The event is hosted by the Maldives Transport Authority, with support from the SACEP Secretariat. The Minister of State for Economic Development of the Maldives, H.E. Mr. Abdul Latheef Mohamed, opened the meeting, and emphasized the importance of addressing oil and chemical spill issues for the region and the need for enhanced regional cooperation. Experts from ITOPF, CEDRE and OSRL are also participating, along with a team from IMO’s Marine Environment Division, which includes Jose Matheickal, Yasuhiro Urano and John Alonso.
Source: IMO
