A new IMO-Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (Norad) environmental project in Southeast Asia is set to begin, to support seven countries to protect the marine environment from shipping operations. The four-year project will focus on enhancing the countries’ capacity to implement a number of high-priority marine environment conventions, including the International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships (MARPOL); the Anti-Fouling Systems Convention; the London dumping of wastes convention and protocol; and the Ballast Water Management Convention.
IMO and Norad signed (on 8 December 2017) an Agreement to support the new major project titled “Marine Environment Protection for Southeast Asia Seas (MEPSEAS)”. Under the Agreement, Norad will make available some US$2 million via contributions to IMO’s Integrated Technical Cooperation Programme. The seven ASEAN countries involved will be Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Thailand and Viet Nam.
The project will build on a previous IMO-Norad project which directly led to the six countries concerned (Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand and Viet Nam) making substantial progress in terms of implementation and/or ratification of IMO environmental treaties. For countries which have acceded to the relevant treaties, the new MEPSEAS project will allow them to focus on effective implementation.