Senior maritime administrators from nine countries in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region completed a five-day workshop in preparation for their respective audits under the IMO Member State Audit Scheme (IMSAS).
Under IMSAS, all Member States are required to undergo a mandatory audit within a seven-year audit cycle, to assess their performance in implementing applicable IMO instruments.
The workshop was jointly organized in Dubai, United Arab Emirates (21-25 April) by IMO and the Ministry of Energy and Infrastructure of the UAE, as the host country.
Twenty participants received training on how to strengthen their maritime administrations' capacity to implement and enforce mandatory IMO instruments as well as the IMO Instruments Implementation Code (III Code).
Participants discussed specific guidance for the following:
- preparation and conduct of audits under IMSAS;
- development of corrective action plans (CAP) to address findings;
- actions to be taken by a Member State to identify and eliminate the root causes of any finding or observation from the audit, in order to prevent their recurrence were provided.
Since the IMSAS was made mandatory in January 2016, 144 mandatory audits under IMSAS have been conducted, with up to 25 Member States are audited annually.
With the first audit cycle due to be completed at the end of 2025, participants were briefed on the latest developments related to the Scheme.
Countries that participated in the workshop included: Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Morocco, Oman, Qatar, Tunisia and the United Arab Emirates.
