JAKARTA/PHNOM PENH, 30 June 2022 – The ASEAN-German project, Reduce, Reuse, Recycle to Protect the Marine Environment and Coral Reefs, or 3RProMar in short, kicked off its series of regional workshops to unite efforts in combatting marine debris in Southeast Asia on May 30-31.
Dr. Pornsri Suthanaruk, Deputy Director-General of the Department of Marine and Coastal Resources representing the ASEAN Working Group on Coastal and Marine Environment (AWGCME) reiterating the goal to achieve sustainable management of the coastal and marine environment through responding to marine plastic pollution. She also emphasised the joint efforts of the ASEAN Member States and the importance of projects like 3RProMar.
In his remarks, Deputy Secretary-General of ASEAN for Socio-Cultural Community Ekkaphab Phanthanvong,emphasised ASEAN’s commitment to strengthening collective actions in addressing this pressing issue of plastic pollution by launching the ASEAN Regional Action Plan for Combating Marine Debris in ASEAN Member Statesin May 2021.
“These strategic actions are importantly contributing to enable and operationalise the ASEAN Leader’s Declaration on the Blue Economy, the ASEAN Comprehensive Framework on Care Economy and also the ASEAN Comprehensive Recovery Framework,” he further explained.
Deputy Head of the Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany Thomas Graf remarked that, “the German government through Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH stands ready to support ASEAN in striving for transformational change towards achieving a more sustainable, circular future.” He highlighted the global dimension of marine litter and explained the successful cooperation within the framework of the ASEAN Germany Development Partnership 2018–2022.
The workshop served as a platform to exchange several issues relevant to the acceleration of the implementation of the ASEAN Regional Action Plan for Combating Marine Debris, which was the main topic of this 1st Regional Workshop. Participants recognised the need to strengthen cooperation at the regional and national levels, particularly on how the national and local action plans could be aligned with the ASEAN Regional Action Plan, and vice versa.
Participants noted that there are opportunities to utilise existing support and stressed the importance of multi-stakeholder cooperation and engagement. On the first day, the participants were divided into groups to discuss and generate recommendations for enabling the planning phase of the ASEAN Regional Action Plan, among others. Oliver Hoppe, Counsellor for Development Cooperation for the German Embassy, ended the first day with an optimistic message that participants would take new insights and inspiration from these sessions.
The second day took a closer look on approaches of research and innovation, as well as public awareness raising. Participants noted the need to bring solutions into country contexts in the fields of research, innovation/technology, and capacity building, and to advance doable implementable business models in country contexts. In this regard, it is important improve knowledge management and communication platform.
The last plenary session raised the issue of public awareness and importance of collaboration between government who regulates and establish policy, private sector, and civil society movement in order to achieve impactful behavioral change. On the last day, participants were invited in another group discussion to explore opportunities for 3RproMar project to contribute to the implementation of ASEAN Regional Action Plan.
“How do we move forward?” was the central question for the last round of breakout sessions. It aimed to use the insights of the conference to develop concrete decisions and outlines. These will soon be presented in a more extensive report.
Sumana Kajonwattanakul, AWGCME Chairperson Representative, closed the workshop by stating: “The outcomes of this workshop will be valuable and enhance knowledge in taking further steps to accelerating implementation of the ASEAN Regional Action Plan”.
The conference took place simultaneously in Jakarta and Phnom Penh and held through a hybrid format. Various international experts, policy makers, scientists, and project’s key stakeholders shared their experiences and exchanged ideas with representatives of different ASEAN Working Groups. Over 200 participants joined 3RProMar’s first regional workshop both online and offline.
The two-day Workshop was organised by GIZ on behalf of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) in coordination with the ASEAN Secretariat.
