September 2011, Central America

Following the PRTR Technical Meetings held in Costa Rica, Guatemala and Honduras in June 2011, with participation of PRTR experts from Chile, Mexico, Peru and Spain, additional technical meetings were held in Panama (30-31 August) and Belize (1-2 September). Panama began the design of a PRTR under a project supported by the SAICM Quick Start Programme Trust Fund. In the case of Belize, the PRTR project is part of the collaboration between the Central American Commission on Environment and Development (CCAD) and the Ministry of Environment of Spain (Ministerio de Medio Ambiente y Medio Rural y Marino de España). UNITAR provides technical support on both projects.

Although the PRTR initiatives in Panama and Belize are implemented through different collaborators, all work is coordinated with other five Central American countries that are also designing PRTRs (Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and the Dominican Republic). The Central American Council of Ministers of Environment decided in June 2010, during its XLVI Ordinary Meeting, that the implementation of a regional PRTR for Central America and the Dominican Republic was a priority under the regional environmental agenda. CCAD, as the entity in charge of this agenda, was mandated to support Central American countries to design and implement national PRTRs in each country, as well as coordinating all efforts on this matter.

In this regards, the Council of Ministers foresees that after the implementation of national PRTRs, there will a feed into a regional PRTR managed by CCAD. Consequently, this would be the third regional PRTR in the world, after the EU and North American PRTRs and the first one in a developing-country context.

The PRTR technical meetings in Belize and Panama followed the same methodology as the meetings in Costa Rica, Guatemala and Honduras. PRTR experts from Chile, Spain and United States shared lessons learned and best practices on designing a PRTR with the stakeholders of Belize and Panama. The scope of a PRTR system, the legal considerations to implement it and the needs to achieve an operative PRTR were discussed by the experts with the PRTR National Coordinating Groups, which consist of representatives of different Ministries, industry and private sector, NGOs and academia. These groups will use the information they received from experts to further develop their national PRTRs and move towards a pilot trial of the system beginning in 2012.