To enhance the effectiveness of its political and technical focal points in negotiating and implementing MEAs, a State can:
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Clearly designate the principal political and technical focal points.
- Ensure that the focal points have sufficient funding and personnel.
- Provide the political and technical focal points with clear mandates.
- Ensure regular communication and coordination between the political and technical focal points. This is particularly important when the political focal point is negotiating an MEA, and the technical focal point is responsible for implementing that MEA. Such communication can help the political focal point know what is necessary, feasible, or problematic from the practical standpoint of implementation. Measures to promote such coordination include:
- Clear procedures requiring the political focal point to notify the relevant institutions and individuals responsible for implementing MEAs.
- Involvement of the technical focal point in negotiating, concluding, and ratifying MEAs (as appropriate).
- Procedures designed to prevent a political focal point from communicating final acceptance or ratification of an MEA before implementing legislation and institutional frameworks have been established.
- Ensure regular communication and coordination between focal points for the MEA in question and related MEAs, in order to prevent a State presenting conflicting or contradictory positions in different fora.
This Checklist builds upon a similar checklist in the 1999 CARICOM Guidelines for MEA Implementation.