21 January 2010:  Plenary Sessions and Seminars

Effective enforcement of environmental laws involves three stages—inspections, prosecution and sentencing.  To spark a discussion on best practices to strengthen environmental enforcement, presenters showcased a multi-pronged approach to provide environmental enforcement officials the necessary tools and capacity to achieve the three stages.  This approach is based on integrating best practices which will assist with the harmonization of legislation and procedures at the regional level.  The discussion revolved around these best practices and lessons learned.

During this panel, participants received insights into effective techniques to build capacity for incorporating environment linkages into national development planning processes, budget processes and sector implementation programs.

Community-based planning is strengthened when a diverse range of stakeholders is engaged in the planning, implementation, and monitoring associated with programs. This session focused on useful tools and steps to fully engage diverse background stakeholders in the best practices for increased collaboration and participation among local governments, CSOs, citizen constituents, and other stakeholders. Presenters provided CAFTA-DR exemplars of shared leadership situations, facilitating strategic planning endeavors, managing large community-based dialogues about critical issues, and facilitating work sessions on concerns that cut across institutional boundaries.

This panel focused on enhanced information systems within environmental ministries to improve administrative efficiency, increase public access to environmental information, and foster transparency and inter-institutional linkages for information sharing. Discussion during this session focused on 1) systems as tools and 2) application of systems. Presenters demonstrated the effectiveness of platforms such as SERVIR, EIA tracking, and other technology based platforms for collecting and disseminating environmental data.

Heightened awareness among consumers regarding environmental degradation and potentially negative aspects of global climate change has created an expanded market for environmentally sound products. Sometimes, “green” products are more expensive than traditional alternatives due to an increase in production cost. This session focused on examples of market-based incentives for companies to go “green,” along with public-private ventures or small grants programs that have been successful in reducing wastes while increasing profits.

Participants got a first-hand look at how to navigate the new public CAFTA-DR Environmental Cooperation Program website to obtain user-friendly information on ECP from its formal framework to its activities—by theme and country—to current events (What’s On? and What’s New?), and more. Attendees learned how to contribute to the website by submitting questions, comments and content, and considered how the website can most effectively increase public awareness of environmental issues and encourage public participation.  This session was open to the public and to Program implementers.

The purpose of this session was to present findings of the first report on the progress of the CAFTA-DR Environmental Cooperation Program, and provide insight on the design results based on monitoring and evaluation process for the CAFTA-DR Environmental Cooperation Program.

22 January 2010:  Plenary Sessions

CAFTA-DR participants in the conference took part in a culminating exercise to apply lessons learned throughout the conference, and the CAFTA-DR experience.  Participants broke into small groups with facilitators and were given programmatic scenarios to tackle as a group.  Each group then presented its recommendations in plenary.

The purpose of this session was to highlight the importance and challenges of making communication and outreach around CAFTA-DR issues, from the perspective of U.S. agencies, implementers, and ministries.  Panelists shared successful experiences and learned lessons in getting the information to the public, using different tools: websites, media, and others; and also through joint efforts with ministries and U.S. agencies.  Impact of the outreach and challenges was also addressed.