Inaugural Environmental Management Training for Indonesian Senior Officials under the AECEN Twinning Programme - 23 - 26 March 2009

On 23-26 March 2009, the Singapore Environment Institute (SEI) organised the inaugural 4-day training programme for 21 Heads of Divisions from Indonesia's Ministry of the Environment and local governments under the Asian Environmental Compliance and Enforcement Network (AECEN) Twinning Programme.

Workshop delegates with Representatives from the Indonesian Ministry of Environment, AECEN and NEA

AECEN is a governmental network established in Oct 2004, supported by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and Asian Development Bank (ADB). In cooperation with member countries, of which Singapore joined in 2005, AECEN organises country-based as well as regional pilot activities and training initiatives, and facilitates exchanges of experiences and best practices among member countries. The AECEN Twinning Programme is one of the initiatives to facilitate Member-to-Member technical engagement in environmental compliance and enforcement.

PCD Senior Engineer, Mr Poon Chiew Tuck explaining Singapore's environmental management strategies to the delegates.

In 2008, Singapore agreed to partner Indonesia MoE, through AECEN under the Twining Programme initiative, to develop capacity building programmes to help Indonesia with its development of new environmental compliance inspections guidelines and improve capacity of its environmental inspectors and investigators.

Officiating the opening ceremony was Mr Joseph Hui, Director General of Environmental Protection, National Environment Agency (NEA). In his speech, Mr Hui welcomed the delegates to Singapore's sharing of experiences with Indonesia, and highlighted the significance of this knowledge exchange programme. The Ceremony was graced by Deputy Minister of Environmental Compliance, Ministry of the Environment, Indonesia, Mr Ilyas Assad, and Director (SEI).

Over the 4-days, the delegates underwent a series of lectures, discussions, technical visits and attachments with NEA officers from the Pollution Control Department (PCD) to understand Singapore's experiences and practices in its environmental compliance inspection and investigation capacity.

The delegates felt that it was a useful and meaningful programme which had helped to crystalise their formulation of the recommendations and solution plans in the development of their environmental compliance inspections guidelines.

Last updated on 14 Apr 09