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CASTRIES, St Lucia -- Four multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs) will come into focus later this month when two workshops are convened in Saint Lucia to address harmonized reporting by Caribbean countries, and the use of integrated environment assessment (IEA) tools for mainstreaming those agreements into national policy development.

The workshops, funded by the European Union, are executed by the Caribbean Hub of the Project for Capacity Building Related to MEAs in African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) States (the ACP-MEAs project) in collaboration with the government of Saint Lucia. The Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Secretariat, working in partnership with the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), is the Caribbean hub for the project.

Representatives of CARICOM member states, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, as well as the African Union Commission and the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme, will participate in the two workshops.

The MEAs of focus for both workshops are the Convention on Biological Diversity, the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Fauna and Flora, and the Protocol concerning Specially Protected Areas and Wildlife.

The two-day workshop on the development and use of a Caribbean Harmonised Reporting Template (CHART) begins on 23 January and is intended to raise awareness of the draft template that is used for streamlining reporting by Caribbean countries to biodiversity-related MEAs. It will also train participants in the use of the template. Harmonised reporting facilitates information-sharing, helps to ensure that relevant data is available to support decision-making and planning for coordinated MEAs implementation, and reduces the burden of reporting under the various MEAs to which countries are signatories.

The workshop on MEAs mainstreaming from 28-30 January, will address the importance of building linkages between MEAs and national development. Participants will have the opportunity to undertake hands-on working sessions on how to use IEA tools to support the integration of MEAs into decision-making at the economic, social and physical development levels.

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