The overall objective of Capacity Building Related to Multilateral Environmental Agreements (MEAs) in African Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) Countries (“ACP MEAs”) is to enhance the capacity of ACP countries to implement MEAs, leading to an improvement in environment and natural resources management in these countries. ACP MEAs will reduce the adverse effects of, in particular, climate change, loss of biodiversity, drought, land degradation, chemicals and waste, and obsolete pesticides, including other threats resulting from environmental degradation. The ACP MEAs implementation period is from 1 March 2009 to 28 February 2013.

The sixteen Caribbean ACP countries have actively participated in the international debate and negotiations of the major Multilateral Environmental Agreements (MEAs) and successfully gained international consensus that as small islands and low-lying coastal states they face unique environmental challenges. They are Parties to most MEAs but their obligations have not been effectively mainstreamed into their legislative framework, policies and programmes.

On balance, there are five main issues with regard to MEA implementation in the Caribbean ACP countries:

1. Provisions of MEAs need to be incorporated into national legislation;

2. Capacity with respect to legislative drafting to facilitate incorporation of MEAs into national legislation needs to be enhanced and appropriate institutional arrangements for MEA implementation need to be established;

3. Plans and strategies for MEA implementation need to be developed, Monitoring and evaluation of and reporting to MEAs also need to be ensured;

 4. Support is needed on substantive technical issues related to MEA implementation in areas such as technical research and problem analysis, policy analysis, legal drafting and environmental project management;

5. There is a lack of regional institutional capacity to support Caribbean ACP countries in implementing their MEA obligations.

Fiscal constraints and overall limited financial resources have also severely impacted their capacity to make the necessary investments to improve the technical capacity of environmental institutions. Most of these institutions remain understaffed and limited in terms of the depth of technical expertise and experience. Meanwhile, the state of the environment continues to deteriorate and the Region faces a number of complex and urgent environmental problems which pose a threat to its long-term economic, social and cultural viability.

In an effort to promote synergies in their implementation of MEAs, the Caribbean ACP countries have urged the development community and the Secretariats of the MEAs to assist them in devising viable solutions to effectively implement their obligations to those MEAs to which they are Parties.

The European Commission-UNEP funded project “Capacity Building related to Multilateral Environmental Agreements (MEAs) in the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) Countries – the Caribbean Hub” is one such initiative designed to build capacity in this area in the Region. The project will focus on building and strengthening capacities in the Caribbean ACP countries for compliance with, and implementation and enforcement of MEAs. Specifically, it will:

• Improve national and regional capacities on understanding, negotiation and coordination of MEAs and national implementation of MEAs. This will be achieved through enhancing negotiation and reporting capacity, training and awareness-raising, follow-up of ratification processes and set-up of national and regional coordination mechanisms for effective MEA implementation;

• Improve the exchange and utilisation of data on the state of natural resources and trends for better definition of implementation strategies of the different MEAs. This will be realised through an improved network of centres of data collection and environmental knowledge management;

• Improve mainstreaming of MEAs into Poverty Reduction Strategies, National Sustainable Development Strategies and MDG goals, including national and regional policies and strategies, Appropriate mechanisms in support of decision-making processes will also be established;

• Improve capacity of following-up and mainstreaming climate change, biodiversity, chemicals and waste, freshwater and marine issues, as well as appropriate structural collaboration with relevant stakeholders in the Caribbean ACP countries;

• Improve coordination between the Caribbean Hub and the national focal points and operationalise databases on MEAs; and

• Increase exchanges of experience on working with and implementing MEAs both at the regional and national levels.

The Project is designed to increase the capacities of Caribbean ACP countries in the above-mentioned areas and will entail the provision of technical assistance, training, policy and advisory support services to enhance the capacities of the countries in implementing their obligations under the various MEAs. The Caribbean Hub project is being implemented and monitored through the CARICOM Secretariat’s Sustainable development and Environment Programme.