Bali, 22 May 2023: ‘Reduce Reuse Recycle to Protect Marine Debris and Coral Reefs’ (3RproMar), an ASEAN-German cooperation project implemented by Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH in cooperation with the ASEAN Secretariat, successfully organised its 2nd Regional Workshop in Bali.
The workshop brought together experts and stakeholders’ representatives to discuss approaches, challenges, lessons learned, and opportunities to improve the regional collective efforts in addressing marine plastic pollution, and dive deeper into the ongoing negotiation on the international legally binding instrument on plastic pollution.
Through his opening remark, the Director of Coastal and Marine Pollution and Damage Control, Ministry of Environment and Forestry of Indonesia, Mr Dasrul Chaniago expressed his hope that the workshop could strengthen the implementation of the ASEAN Regional Action Plan.
‘I encourage all workshop participants to be fully engaged in designing, exploring, and developing regional measures and interventions to strengthen the implementation of the ASEAN Regional Action Plan for Combating Marine Debris in the ASEAN Member States, 2021 -2025,’ said Mr Chaniago.
In line with the above statement, H.E. Mr Ekkaphab Phantavong, Deputy Secretary-General (DSG) of ASEAN for Socio-Cultural Community (ASCC), underlined the importance of better partner engagement in implementing the ASEAN Regional Action Plan.
‘The implementation of the Regional Action Plan needs coordinated actions. We encourage ASEAN Member States to join forces to end plastic pollution’, said Mr Phantavong in his opening speech.
Deputy Head of Mission of the Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany to Indonesia, ASEAN and Timor-Leste, Mr Thomas Graf also emphasised that collaboration is instrumental in addressing the pressing issue of marine plastic in the region. ‘Only when we combine our actions, we can succeed,’ he said.
As part of 3RproMar’s mission to ensure a plastic-free ocean and strengthen the circular economy in the region, the project also used the opportunity to officially launch the ‘3RproMar Regional Knowledge Partnership for Marine Litter Prevention’, an initiative that aims to enhance the accessibility to relevant knowledge that could support regional efforts to prevent marine litter.
Uniting ERIA’s Regional Knowledge Centre for Marine Plastic Debris, AIT’s Regional Resource Centre for Asia and the Pacific, and NIVA’s International Knowledge Hub Against Plastic Pollution, this partnership is expected to effectively disseminate invaluable scientific insights and best practices to empower relevant decision-making in the region.
Through this valued partnership, the Regional Knowledge Centre for Marine Plastic Debris will contribute more to disseminating knowledge related to the upstream measures on waste management and marine litter, Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR), and private sector engagement, among others.
One of the key topics discussed during the workshop was Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) in the ASEAN context. Led by representatives of GIZ and ERIA’s Regional Knowledge Centre for Marine Plastic Debris, the participants discussed barriers and enablers of EPR implementation in ASEAN Member States. Through this session, the representatives of the states gathered useful insights that can be taken into account by countries preparing to implement such scheme as an effective approach to reduce unmanaged plastic waste.
Behavioural change communication practices to improve waste management and drive the circular economy was another interesting topic discussed at this workshop. In this session, the speakers and participants discussed various behaviour change campaigns in the region from different perspectives: researcher, governmental organisation, and national government. Each elaboration came with insightful lessons learned that could be utilised for future relevant behaviour change campaign strategy.
As the 2nd meeting of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC-2) to develop an international legally binding instrument on plastic pollution was taking place almost at the same time in Paris, 3RproMar took this opportunity to dive deeper into the negotiation process. A plenary session was dedicated to discussing the scientific perspective on the negotiation, the opportunities and implications for ASEAN, the potential contribution from the Southeast Asia Programme on Marine Plastics (SEA-MaP) project, as well as the potential alignment between ASEAN Regional Action Plan for Combating Marine Debris and the upcoming global plastic treaty.
Finally, the last session of the 3RproMar 2nd Regional Workshop discussed the priorities and progress of the 3RproMar project implementation in four main target countries: Cambodia, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Viet Nam.
The activities carried out by 3RproMar to tackle land-based waste and marine litter are critical in addressing the pressing issue of marine pollution. Thus, ERIA’s Regional Knowledge Centre for Marine Plastic Debris is honoured to be part of the 3RproMar Regional Knowledge Partnership for Marine Litter Prevention and is determined to leave tangible outputs through this partnership.
Watch the full workshop:
