A series of workshops is underway through which IMO is providing support to Central and Eastern Mediterranean countries in oil spill contingency planning. Events have taken place in Bar, Montenegro (13-14 October), Durres, Albania (18-20 October) and Tekirdag, Türkiye (24-26 October), with a further one due in Cairo, Egypt next month (22-23 November).
The in-person workshops are delivered by the Regional Marine Pollution Emergency Response Centre for the Mediterranean Sea (REMPEC) through IMO's Integrated Technical Cooperation Programme (ITCP). They provide support on each State's National Oil Spill Contingency Plan (NOSCP) which form the foundation for an effective and sustainable oil spill preparedness and response framework. The workshops also facilitate effective implementation of the International Convention on Oil Pollution Preparedness, Response and Co-operation (OPRC).
The activities are aimed at stakeholders and government personnel involved in responding to oil pollution incidents. Participants are provided with the knowledge needed to make the NOSCP appropriate for responding to oil spill incidents and, by identifying any gaps or shortcomings in national plans/national oil spill preparedness and response programmes, to make necessary updates.
Table-top and discussion-based exercises are used to build capacity and test response systems to identify areas that require improvement. ARPEL's RETOS tool, developed with support from IMO, is used to assess and analysis the level of preparedness of these target countries.
This targeted assistance is a result of a subregional workshop on the assessment of the level of oil spill response planning and readiness management, which was delivered by REMPEC in 2021.
The Mediterranean Regional Trust Fund for the Protection of the Mediterranean Sea Against Pollution has enabled REMPEC to deliver similar national activities this year in Piraeus, Greece (5-6 July), Monaco (online 26-27 July); Koper, Slovenia (21-23 September), Zagreb, Croatia (26-28 September), Larnaca, Cyprus (27-29 September), Libya (online 24-26 October). Workshops are due to be held, too, in Israel (April 2023), and the Syrian Arab Republic (online in 2023).
Similar workshops took place to support Caribbean small island developing states (SIDS) in Dominica and the Dominican Republic in August.
