IPNews-Monrovia: Authorities of the Environmental Protection Agency of Liberia (EPA) and Deutsche Gesellschaft Fur Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ ) on Tuesday, September 3, 2019 signed a Memorandum of Understanding for the control and environmental monitoring of mining operations in Liberia.
EPA Executive Director, Dr. Nathaniel T. Blama and Kim Rahel Schultze, GIZ Regional Resource Governance Program Project Manager signed the MOU for the respective institutions at a ceremony held at EPA office in Sinkor.
According to the MOU, GIZ Regional Resource Governance Program will initiate a support program for the EPA to effectively monitor mining operations in the country to ensure that they are in compliance with the environmental laws.
It was also agreed that GIZ support the EPA in understanding and planning the reasonable distribution of responsibilities and the improvement of regulation and environmental monitoring and enforcement of mining activities in Liberia.
The implementation of the program would be done in three phases including preparation and desk review and conceptual framework development, data collection/ analysis, development of capacity baseline and development of capacity development plan and validation workshop with partners.
According to the MOU, the implementation of the program activities will contribute to EPA’s increased collaboration with GIZ in capacity building to identify areas for collaboration between EPA and GIZ following the initial support program.
As part of the project, GIZ will conduct a capacity assessment of the EPA to monitor and regulate the environmental aspects of mining projects in Liberia.
The GIZ will also conduct a comparative analysis with regard to international best practices and analyze the gaps and needs of the EPA and develop and Institutional Capacity Development Plan (CDP) for the EPA for the improvement of the regulation and environmental monitoring of mining projects.
