VERTIC’s Programme Director for National Implementation, Scott Spence, participated in Fact-Finding Visits in Viet Nam and Lao PDR during 29 January through 2 February as part of EU CBRN Risk Mitigation Centres of Excellence Project 61. These were the third two of ten visits to the project countries through March 2018.

VERTIC’s Programme Director for National Implementation, Scott Spence, participated in Fact-Finding Visits in Viet Nam and Lao PDR during 29 January through 2 February as part of EU CBRN Risk Mitigation Centres of Excellence Project 61. These were the third two of ten visits to the project countries through March 2018.

The purpose of Project 61 is to address outstanding chemical safety and security issues in areas of legislation/regulation, prevention, detection, preparedness and response. The project will address not only the sound management of chemicals and their wastes but also take emerging chemical issues into account. The components of Project 61 are:

  • Judicial reinforcement with respect to sound management of chemicals and their wastes
  • Enhanced capacity for prevention of chemical incidents including both safety and security aspects
  • Enhanced capacity for the regions’ mobile detection possibilities and chemical testing laboratories
  • Measures to enhance the regions’ preparedness and response capacity to chemical incidents
  • Measures to enhance the regions’ recovery capacity after a chemical incident

The Project 61 consortium consists of international experts from VERTIC (UK), Public Health England (PHE) (UK), Sustainable Criminal Justice Solutions (SCJS) (UK), the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM) (Netherlands) and the International Security and Emergency Management Institute (Slovakia). Mr Spence is Project 61’s Key Expert-Legal and as such is responsible for implementation of Work Package 1 (Judicial reinforcement with respect to sound management of chemicals and their wastes).

The participating countries in Project 61 are Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

Project 61 was conceived and funded within the framework of the EU CBRN Risk Mitigation Centres of Excellence Initiative. The CoE currently covers eight regions and 54 partner countries. The EU CBRN CoE Secretariat for Southeast Asia is based in Manila, the Philippines. It works in partnership with countries to encourage local ownership of CBRN action plans, policies and joint preparation of regional project proposals.