Government signs environmental agreements

The project is being funded by the Global Environmental Facility in the sum of US $1.2 million from the period September 2017 to August 2020.

Planning and Development Minister Camille Robinson-Regis and United Nations (UN) Resident Coordinator Richard Blewitt signed the agreement prior to the start of a meeting on the multi-country Sustainable Development Framework Country Implementation Plan (CIP) for TT 2017 – 2021 at the Eric Williams Financial Complex in Port-of-Spain.

The goal of the project is to strengthen Government’s ability to create, leverage and maintain synergies for the national implementation of MEAs and strengthen integrated approaches to environmental management.

The project will address cross-cutting capacity needs identified through the National Capacity Self-Assessment (NCSA) process and other assessments with a focus on facilitating the implementation of MEAs, including a better alignment of the Green Fund with the implementation of MEAs obligations in this country.

Robinson-Regis said the meeting was timely coming on the heels of UN main streaming, acceleration and policy support mission in April.

She said the focus of that mission was assessing this country’s readiness to implement the Sustainable Development Goals otherwise known as Action 2030.

Robinson-Regis said this highlighted the ministry’s awareness of the need to consolidate the various national development initiatives into a coherent whole which optimises the achievement of the Vision 2030 and SDG targets. She added the current economic realities and the unavoidable tightening of the public purse, require such consolidation to happen as quickly and efficiently as possible.