Ryan Ba­choo

Lead Ed­i­tor—News­gath­er­ing

ryan.ba­choo@cnc3.co.tt

Min­is­ter of For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs, Sean Sobers, signed a Mem­o­ran­dum of Un­der­stand­ing (MoU) last Fri­day to en­able the cre­ation of a Co­or­di­na­tion Mech­a­nism to sup­port In­te­grat­ed Ocean Gov­er­nance in the Caribbean and North Brazil Shelf Large Ma­rine Ecosys­tems (CLME+ re­gion).

The sign­ing cer­e­mo­ny was held at the Min­istry of For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs head­quar­ters. The MoU is now en­dorsed by 17 states and nine in­ter­gov­ern­men­tal or­gan­i­sa­tions, of­fi­cial­ly ac­ti­vat­ing the Ocean Co­or­di­na­tion Mech­a­nism (OCM) un­der the Pro­CaribePlus Project.

The Pro­CaribePlus Project aims to pro­tect and re­store ocean re­sources, build re­silience, and sup­port in­vest­ments for in­clu­sive and sus­tain­able blue econ­o­my de­vel­op­ment across the CLME+ re­gion. The MoU re­flects T&T’s com­mit­ment to strength­en­ing re­gion­al part­ner­ships and en­hanc­ing na­tion­al ca­pac­i­ty for ma­rine and coastal re­source man­age­ment.

Through the OCM, T&T is ex­pect­ed to ben­e­fit in sev­er­al ar­eas. These in­clude the de­vel­op­ment of a sus­tain­able blue econ­o­my, which bal­ances en­vi­ron­men­tal pro­tec­tion with eco­nom­ic op­por­tu­ni­ties in fish­eries, ma­rine spa­tial plan­ning, eco-tourism, and in­no­va­tion in ocean-based in­dus­tries.

The agree­ment po­si­tions the coun­try to at­tract in­vest­ment, fos­ter job cre­ation in coastal com­mu­ni­ties, and se­cure long-term eco­nom­ic ben­e­fits from ma­rine re­sources while pro­tect­ing bio­di­ver­si­ty.

Oth­er ben­e­fits in­clude en­hanced pro­gramme co­or­di­na­tion, al­low­ing for na­tion­al mon­i­tor­ing of ocean sus­tain­abil­i­ty goals and im­ple­men­ta­tion of the Strate­gic Ac­tion Pro­gramme; sci­en­tif­ic col­lab­o­ra­tion through da­ta shar­ing with re­search and aca­d­e­m­ic in­sti­tu­tions to in­form leg­is­la­tion on ocean pol­lu­tion and cli­mate change; re­source mo­bil­i­sa­tion by sup­port­ing cross-sec­toral pol­i­cy in­te­gra­tion and ac­cess to fund­ing for ocean gov­er­nance ini­tia­tives; and pol­i­cy co­her­ence to align in­sti­tu­tion­al and pol­i­cy frame­works across gov­er­nance lev­els.

The agree­ment is al­so ex­pect­ed to im­prove com­mu­ni­ca­tion and col­lab­o­ra­tion among par­tic­i­pat­ing coun­tries, in­ter­gov­ern­men­tal or­gan­i­sa­tions, and stake­hold­ers for the de­vel­op­ment and ex­e­cu­tion of ocean-re­lat­ed pro­grammes.

Sup­port for the sign­ing was giv­en by the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly, the In­sti­tute of Ma­rine Af­fairs, the Min­istry of Agri­cul­ture, Land and Fish­eries, and the Min­istry of Plan­ning, Eco­nom­ic Af­fairs and De­vel­op­ment.

The MoU does not cre­ate any fi­nan­cial oblig­a­tions for T&T and pre­serves the sov­er­eign rights of mem­ber states. It al­so al­lows the op­tion to with­draw from the arrange­ment at any time.

The Min­istry stat­ed that par­tic­i­pa­tion in the Co­or­di­na­tion Mech­a­nism will help ad­vance na­tion­al and re­gion­al ef­forts to­ward ef­fec­tive man­age­ment of ma­rine and coastal re­sources, in line with the coun­try’s pri­or­i­ties for en­vi­ron­men­tal sus­tain­abil­i­ty, cli­mate re­silience, and eco­nom­ic di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion.