Plan­ning and De­vel­op­ment Min­is­ter Camille Robin­son-Reg­is an­nounces T&T’s par­tic­i­pa­tion in mul­ti-mil­lion dol­lar glob­al en­vi­ron­men­tal project. De­tails fol­low in this press re­lease from the min­is­ter.

Plan­ning and De­vel­op­ment Min­is­ter Camille Robin­son-Reg­is is an­nounc­ing for pub­lic in­for­ma­tion Trinidad and To­ba­go’s par­tic­i­pa­tion in a US $11 mil­lion project called IS­LANDS, which stands for “Im­ple­ment­ing Sus­tain­able Low and Non-chem­i­cal De­vel­op­ment in Small Is­land De­vel­op­ing States”.

This glob­al pro­gramme seeks to ad­dress the sound man­age­ment of chem­i­cals and waste through strength­en­ing the ca­pac­i­ty of sub-na­tion­al, na­tion­al, and re­gion­al in­sti­tu­tions; strength­en­ing the en­abling pol­i­cy and reg­u­la­to­ry frame­works in se­lect­ed coun­tries, and un­lock­ing re­sources for im­ple­men­ta­tion mea­sures re­gard­ing chem­i­cal waste and pol­lu­tion.

Min­is­ter Robin­son-Reg­is adds that through our will­ing par­tic­i­pa­tion in this project, Gov­ern­ment’s en­vi­ron­men­tal thrust al­so re­flect­ed in the re­cent Na­tion­al Bud­get pre­sen­ta­tion will re­ceive an ad­di­tion­al boost. Trinidad and To­ba­go will gain the ad­van­tage of the project’s four ma­jor pro­gramme com­po­nents which in­clude:

♦Pre­vent­ing the fu­ture build-up of chem­i­cals in small is­land de­vel­op­ing states (SIDS).
♦Safe man­age­ment and dis­pos­al of ex­ist­ing chem­i­cals, prod­ucts and ma­te­ri­als.
♦Safe man­age­ment of prod­ucts en­ter­ing SIDS while clos­ing ma­te­r­i­al and prod­uct loops.
♦Knowl­edge Man­age­ment and Com­mu­ni­ca­tion.

Trinidad and To­ba­go, through this pro­gramme is part of the US $11 mil­lion Glob­al En­vi­ron­ment Fa­cil­i­ty (GEF) ap­proved and fund­ed child project, which is part of a broad­er pro­gram­mat­ic frame­work and par­ent project to sup­port the en­try of thir­ty-three (33) small is­land de­vel­op­ing states (SIDS) in the Caribbean, Pa­cif­ic, At­lantic and the In­di­an Ocean in­to a safe chem­i­cal de­vel­op­ment path­way.  The GEF IS­LANDS Pro­gramme is one of the largest in­vest­ments made by the GEF Waste and Chem­i­cals Fo­cal Area and con­sists of sev­en Child Projects, three of which will take place in the Caribbean.

Min­is­ter Robin­son-Reg­is, par­tic­i­pat­ing in the in­cep­tion meet­ing for the project on Oc­to­ber 5, stat­ed that Trinidad and To­ba­go will ac­tu­al­ly ben­e­fit from re­gion­al and na­tion­al project ac­tiv­i­ties val­ued at ap­prox­i­mate­ly US $800,000.00 out of the to­tal amount al­lo­cat­ed for the glob­al project.

The Min­is­ter adds that at the mi­cro lev­el, cit­i­zens’ health will be the fo­cus through the en­vi­ron­men­tal­ly sound man­age­ment of haz­ardous chem­i­cals in ma­te­ri­als, prod­ucts and wastes; strength­ened in­sti­tu­tion­al and tech­ni­cal ca­pac­i­ty to re­duce/con­trol the cur­rent and fu­ture trade of chem­i­cals and prod­ucts con­tain­ing haz­ardous chem­i­cals and the de­vel­op­ment of a for­mal mech­a­nism for in­ter­a­gency col­lab­o­ra­tion and train­ings for Pes­ti­cide In­spec­tors and Cus­toms Of­fi­cers in the de­vel­op­ment of pre-screen­ing and in­spec­tion guide­lines to con­trol the im­port of mer­cury-added prod­ucts.

The Basel Con­ven­tion Re­gion­al Cen­tre for Train­ing and Tech­nol­o­gy Trans­fer for the Caribbean (BCRC-Caribbean) em­pha­sised that there is al­so a com­po­nent of the project with ac­tiv­i­ties that in­clude the de­vel­op­ment of re­gion­al la­belling and prod­uct stan­dards for chem­i­cals and prod­ucts in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the CARI­COM Re­gion­al Or­gan­i­sa­tion for Stan­dards and Qual­i­ty and na­tion­al bu­reau of stan­dards as well as se­lect­ing suit­able al­ter­na­tives to prod­ucts con­tain­ing mer­cury and per­sis­tent or­gan­ic pol­lu­tants (POPs) and train­ing stake­hold­ers and con­sumers on the ben­e­fits of sus­tain­able pro­cure­ment..

In ad­di­tion to Trinidad and To­ba­go, this project in­volves eight oth­er Caribbean coun­tries in­clud­ing An­tigua and Bar­bu­da, Bar­ba­dos, Bermu­da, Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic, Guyana, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Lu­cia and Suri­name.  It is be­ing im­ple­ment­ed joint­ly by the Unit­ed Na­tions En­vi­ron­ment Pro­gramme (UN­EP) and the Food and Agri­cul­tur­al Or­ga­ni­za­tion of the Unit­ed Na­tions (FAO). The Basel Con­ven­tion Re­gion­al Cen­tre for Train­ing and Tech­nol­o­gy Trans­fer for the Caribbean (BCRC-Caribbean) is act­ing as the Ex­e­cut­ing Agency for this project.

The IS­LANDS project is ful­ly sup­port­ed by the Min­istry of Plan­ning and De­vel­op­ment, which has re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for en­vi­ron­men­tal man­age­ment through the En­vi­ron­men­tal Pol­i­cy and Plan­ning Di­vi­sion as well as oth­er agen­cies in­clud­ing BCRC Caribbean and the En­vi­ron­men­tal Man­age­ment Au­thor­i­ty.  The Min­istry con­clud­ed par­tic­i­pa­tion in the Unit­ed Na­tion’s Bio­di­ver­si­ty Con­fer­ence (COP15) is mak­ing the nec­es­sary prepa­ra­tion for par­tic­i­pa­tion in the UN’s Cli­mate Change Con­fer­ence in No­vem­ber, COP26, which will be held in Glas­gow, Scot­land.