Waste Management and Pollution Control
Training 1Landfill training, Samoa, 2008

Applications are being invited by the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP) for two Train-the-Trainers waste management courses targeting Pacific islanders. 
 

Both courses focus on developing the skills of Pacific islanders in environmentally sound and practical waste management techniques with an emphasis on training the participants to become trainers for each module and to deliver the training on returning to their own countries.  

Each course will be held over two weeks, the first from 4 to 15 March, 2013, focusing on various waste management techniques, including policy and strategic approaches to integrated solid waste management, hazardous waste management and other key waste management challenges facing the Pacific Region. 

The second two-week course will convene from 15 to 26 April, 2013, with an emphasis on addressing landfill and dumpsite management, and will include topics such as leachate treatment and management, and environmental monitoring. 

“This is an excellent opportunity to develop the human resource capacity base for improving waste management in the Pacific region,” said David Haynes, Director of the Waste Management and Pollution Control Division of SPREP. 

“It is important to have a formal training programme customised to the needs of the Pacific region, and which takes into account the special challenges and the limitations facing the region.  

To be held in Fiji at the Fiji National University, this training will be fully funded for successful participants from fourteen SPREP Member Countries: the Cook Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Fiji, Kiribati, Nauru, Niue, Marshall Islands, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu, and Vanuatu. 

Training 2Landfill training, Samoa, 2008

These courses are part of a Regional Solid Waste Management Initiative funded by the Agence Française de Développement (AFD) and carried out by SPREP. Griffith University, based in Queensland, Australia, has been contracted to develop and deliver this vital training programme. 

“I believe this is the first course of its kind to be available in the Pacific region,” said David Sheppard, Director General of SPREP.  

“We acknowledge the support of AFD in making this training possible, and our plan is to work with the Fiji National University and other partners to ensure that this course becomes a permanent offering available to future generations of waste managers in the Pacific”. 

Nominations for the training programmes should be submitted to SPREP by Friday, 30 November, 2012. For more information, please contact Mr Stanley Ebelewicz, the Technical Assistant for the AFD Regional Solid Waste Management Initiative at [email protected].