A five-day workshop organized by CARICOM and the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) trained 40 negotiators from Caribbean countries on issues, procedures, processes and negotiating strategies involving multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs) on biodiversity, climate change and oceans management.
1 June 2012: Forty negotiators from CARIFORUM countries, which include Caribbean Community (CARICOM) member States, Cuba and the Dominican Republic, took part in a training workshop to better represent their national and regional interests in negotiations involving multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs).
The workshop, which took place in Basseterre, St. Kitts and Nevis, from 28 May – 1 June 2012, was organized by the CARICOM Secretariat with support from the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) and the Foundation for International Environmental Law and Development (FIELD). The training is part of a broader project, funded by the EU, on building capacity related to MEAs among African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries.
The training focused on the MEAs concerned with biodiversity, climate change and oceans, including the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and its protocols, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Kyoto Protocol, and the Cartagena Convention on the Protection and Development of the Marine Environment in the Wider Caribbean Region.
The training covered the underlying environmental law behind the MEAs, the role and history of small island States in international negotiations, the negotiating and decision-making processes in MEAs, approaches and styles for influencing those processes, major issues under negotiation in each MEA, and drafting issue briefs and statements. [CARICOM Press Release]