The IMO and the Government of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh have signed a landmark agreement to work together to improve safety and environmental standards in the country’s ship-recycling industry.
A Memorandum of Understanding formalising the cooperation between the two was signed by Mr Nicolaos Charalambous, Director, Technical Cooperation Division, IMO and Mr Md. Ashadul Islam, Additional Secretary, Economic Relations Division of the Ministry of Finance of the Government of Bangladesh, on 10 April 2014.
Improving Standards and Sustainability
IMO and Bangladesh will jointly implement a project entitled “Safe and Environmentally Sound Ship Recycling in Bangladesh – Phase I”. With an annual gross tonnage capacity of more than 8.8 million, the Bangladesh ship recycling industry is one of the world’s most important, second only to neighbouring India in terms of volume.
The project, aimed at improving standards and sustainability within the industry, will consist of five work packages, covering studies on economic and environmental impacts and on the management of hazardous materials and wastes, recommendations on strengthening the Government’s One-Stop Service (in which all the various ministries with a responsibility for ship recycling offer a single point of contact for related matters), a review and upgrade of existing training courses and the development of a detailed project document for a possible follow-up project to implement the recommendations of phase I.
Marine Environment Division and Ministry of Industries
It will be executed by the Marine Environment Division of IMO, in partnership with the Ministry of Industries of Bangladesh, over the next 18 months. The Bangladeshi ministry will coordinate input from the different stakeholder ministries within the country, while IMO will also collaborate with other relevant UN agencies including the International Labour Organization (ILO) and the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) to ensure successful delivery of the project.
Norad and EU Funding
The principal funding for the project will come from the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (Norad), while the Secretariat of the Basel, Rotterdam and Stockholm Conventions (BRS) will also support the project by mobilising some EU funding towards the work package related to the management of hazardous materials, which will partly be implemented by BRS.
Picture: Shipbreaking at Gadani, pakistan (by NGO Shipbreaking Platform 2012)
