The IAPH Risk and Resilience Committee met virtually yesterday, 20 December. Following discussions at the previous meeting on measures to tackle illicit trade and organised crime, members were updated on the recent adoption of the draft resolution submitted by Belgium to the 33rd meeting of the IMO Assembly, to which IAPH was a co-sponsor, on enhancing existing IMO frameworks to highlight the impacts of organised crime on the maritime industry. IAPH will continue to closely follow discussions at IMO level, whilst members agreed to continue to share best practices and knowledge on this important topic. Further to this item, participants identified fires onboard RoRo vessels as an area of increasing concern for the committee to address. It was agreed that there is an evident need for more data on the topic with an interest in engaging relevant stakeholders in the port community to collaborate and share experiences. This is a topic that will also be on the agenda for the Technical Committee Days taking place from 27 to 29 March in London. On the World Ports Tracker, it was announced that the next survey will be launched in January 2024 and port members were encouraged to submit their responses ahead of analysis and publication of the 6th edition of the report in March. Professor Thanos Pallis provided a short presentation on the updated survey which includes new questions on emissions reporting and cold ironing, together with changes to the frequency of reporting to twice a year. Finally, IAPH will be collaborating with the Maritime Anti-Corruption Network (MACN) to deliver a short guidance document to address corruption in ports and gather relevant case studies for the WPSP website to share what actions member ports are currently taking to handle this risk.
