Exploring Strategies for Establishing Compliance Assistance Centers

Exploring Strategies for Establishing Compliance Assistance Centers

Exploring Strategies for Establishing compliance assistance centers

Observational Program for the Thai and Philippine Delegation

Sharing International Experience and Best Practices

Taiwan

July 23-27, 2007

Background:Rapid industrialization and urbanization in Asia have led to significant environmental challenges, including depletion of forests, continued deterioration of urban water and air quality, and an increasing production of hazardous waste. As a result, in addition to exercising enforcement authorities, agencies in the region have been exploring strategies to assist regulated communities to comply with environmental legal requirements.

In particular, the Laguna Lake Development Authority (LLDA) of the Philippines, an agency vested with the powers, functions and responsibilities to manage and control the Laguna de Bay and its watershed, is developing pilot compliance assistance centers for swine farms and slaughterhouses within Laguna de Bay Region. Based on a series of stakeholder consultation meetings and exchange with the United States Environmental Protection Agency (U.S. EPA) and Council of Agriculture and the Swine Association of Republic of China (Taiwan) in May 2007, the LLDA plans to launch the compliance assistance centers in September 2007.

Likewise, the Pollution Control Department (PCD) of Thailand is developing an action plan to establish a pilot compliance assistance center for swine facilities located in the Tha Chin River Basin. Based on the recent consultation with stakeholders and exchange with experts from U.S. EPA and Council of Agriculture and the Swine Association of Taiwan at the Tha Chin and Bang Pakong River Basins, PCD is working to prepare a Compliance Assistance Center website, outreach materials, compliance assistance activities to support swine farmers, and a training course on environmental management.

Objectives:To strengthen the understanding of the Thai and Philippine delegates on strategies for establishing and implementing compliance assistance programs and activities, including the role of regulatory agencies (Council of Agriculture and Environmental Protection Administration), Swine Association, universities, local governments, and others in promoting compliance assistance, and successes and challenges in providing compliance assistance activities to regulated swine farms and slaughterhouses in Taiwan.

Focus Areas:

  • Overview of pollution control efforts for swine and slaughterhouse sectors;
  • Strategies, approaches and criteria for establishing compliance assistance programs and activities for both sectors;
  • Types of compliance assistance activities, such as technical guidance, training workshops, subsidies and loans, etc.;
  • Role of regulatory agency - Environmental Protection Agency and Council of Agriculture in promoting compliance;
  • Role of local governments, universities, environmental groups, and others in supporting compliance assistance activities;
  • Role of Swine Associations in working with their members and regulatory agencies to promote compliance;
  • Coordination mechanisms among the different agencies and partners in promoting compliance;
  • Measures of success of the different compliance assistance initiatives and the program as a whole;
  • Overall successes and challenges, and public perception of the agencies and their compliance assistance program;
  • Budget for compliance assistance activities implementation, including staffing information;
  • Means of sustaining the different compliance assistance programs and activities;
  • Outreach, information dissemination strategies and other ways of ensuring stakeholder involvement;
  • Capacity building programs for swine farmers; and
  • Best practices and innovative technologies to promote environmental management of swine and slaughterhouses facilities.

Participants:8 delegates from Thailand and Philippines

Organizers:Asian Environmental Compliance and Assistance Network (AECEN), a regional network supported by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Council of Agriculture of Taiwan