THE IMO’s Globallast programme is drawing to a close, just as the Organization’s ballast water convention is about to come into force.
The 10-year GloBallast programme’s aim has been to promote the adoption of ballast water practices that will help bring the convention into effect, encouraging developing countries that are IMO member states to take a proactive approach and to create training courses. The IMO ran the Globallast programme in partnership with the UN’s Global Environment Facility (GEF), and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).
Amongst its achievements the project boasts of developing a successful model of working with lead partnering countries as well as the shipping industry and academia to catalyse knowledge-sharing, training and capacity-building. This means it helped countries develop the ability to implement, enforce and monitor the impact of ballast water control measures.
Another achievement of the GloBallast project was pioneering a public-private sector partnership, known as the Global Industry Alliance for Marine Biosecurity (GIA). Here companies such as Keppel Offshore and Marine and APL helped build ballast water issue awareness. GlobBallast also helped create the Global Ballast Water Test Organizations Network, known as GloBal TestNet, formed of 19 organisations that perform the official testing of prototype ballast water treatment systems and put them through the official type approval process.
The ballast water convention comes into force in September this year, more than 13 and a half years after it was originally agreed by IMO members. When in force it will stimulate the rapid installation of ballast water treatment systems on the majority of the world’s fleet. It will also create demand for port sate control inspectors to understand how and when to check for convention compliance at a time when there is still little industry awareness of how this will be successfully done.
Participants at the final GloBallast Partnership Meeting, Panama, March 2017
More details of GloBallast and the last meeting of the form recently help in Panama can be found here.
fathom-news.com
editor@fathom-news.com
