Seven ASEAN countries will get support to protect the marine environment from shipping operations as a new IMO-Norad environmental project in Southeast Asia is set to begin.
Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam will be involved in the four-year International Maritime Organization (IMO) – Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (Norad) project.
As explained, the 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 (BWMC).
On December 8, IMO and Norad signed an agreement to support the new major project entitled “Marine Environment Protection for Southeast Asia Seas (MEPSEAS)” . Under the deal, Norad will make available some USD 2 million via contributions to IMO’s Integrated Technical Cooperation Programme.
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 Vietnam.
IMO said that the previous project has made a “substantial progress” in terms of implementation and ratification of IMO environmental treaties. For countries which have acceded to the relevant treaties, the new MEPSEAS project will allow focusing on their effective implementation, according to the organization.