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STRIKE UPDATES
Capacity building and skills acquisition
Multidisciplinary training sessions
The project organized four multi-disciplinary training courses covering all steps in the enforcement chain (including inspection and detection, investigation, prosecution and sentencing). The trainings aimed to enhance national and international cooperation, and involve awareness raising webinar sessions to reach a global audience of practitioners. The training were originally meant to be organized in Germany, the Netherlands, Slovakia and Ireland, but due to the COVID-19 pandemic three were converted into online workshops, (Germany, Slovakia and Ireland), while the one in the Netherlands was conducted face-to-face. The sessions were designed upon the project outcomes and findings of the Training Needs Assessment and leveraged on the Training Toolkit developed within the project. The four online trainings were organized and successfully delivered to more than 350 participants throughout 2021 and 2022.
Germany Training (online): Illicit Management and illegal trade of problematic waste streams, mercury-added products; special focus: ship-breaking (9-11 Nov 2021), organized by the German Police University (DHPol)
Slovakia Training (online): Better Enforcement against Waste and Mercury crime (24-26 Nov 2021), organized by the Regional Centre of the Basel Convention for Training and Technology Transfer for Central and Eastern Europe in Bratislava
The Netherlands (face-to-face): Training: Essential Elements of Safety Guidelines, Development of Mercury Safety Tool and Training Video (18th Nov 2021), organized by the Netherlands Forensic Institute (NFI)
Ireland Training (online): Practical perspectives on waste enforcement planning and inspections with a focus on forensic and damages analysis relating to waste crime (25-27 Jan 2022), organized by the University of Limerick (UL)
The presentations and tools used in those trainings were reunited under the webpage of the Strike Project (www.strikeproject.org). To inform about the upcoming trainings and to collect participants registration, news and online forms were created and uploaded on the Strike website and the information was largely distributed via the project’s network (including the project mailing list) and on social media (including on LinkedIn and Twitter).
STRIKE FINAL CONFERENCE: Achievements and Lessons Learned
On February 9th, the STRIKE Final conference “Achievements and Lessons Learned” was organised online and opened by Prof. Norelee Kennedy, Vice President of Research at the University of Limerick (UL), Professor Colin Fitzpatrick (UL) and Ms. Vittoria Luda di Cortemiglia (UNITAR). To reflect the final conference aims “to promote and ensure the sustainability and use of the project results with a wider public”, the conference provided an opportunity to present the final results of the project, strengthen networking initiatives, and exploring follow-up activities to sustain the project outcomes.
The conference was divided into three sections. These sections were 1. Conference Opening: Project STRiKE & Panel Discussion, 2. Problematic Waste Streams & Solutions Developed through STRiKE, and finally, 3. Legacy: Passing the Resources Forwards. All partners contributed.
Two keynote speakers from the Basel, Rotterdam and Stockholm Conventions Secretariat and the Minamata Convention Secretariat, Ms. Tatiana Terekhova and Mr. Eisaku Toda, were invited to present the latest developments related to hazardous wastes and mercury. In the afternoon session, Major Gianluca Muscatello and Dr Sara Ferrandi presented the achievements of the OPFA Waste Project, while Ms. Annouchka Mathieu provided an update on the Ambitus project. Finally, DG Environment provided the closing address, highlighting key changes to the Waste Shipment Regulations.
In total, 108 people, 61 women and 46 men registered to attend the final conference. 39 countries were represented.
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