this kind and we are insufficiently equipped to handle this problem.”
The foreign minister called upon the UN, the EU, India its neighbour France, as well other countries and organizations for emergency assistance.
These public statements by governmental officials raise the questions whether authorities were unaware about the risk and unprepared.
Mauritius was prepared A look into the archives reveals that the government was anything but unprepared. The opposite seems the case. It shows that until the disaster, Mauritius was the ‘poster’ boy of regional oil spill prevention. Mauritius was one of the first African countries to finalize in 1990 an oil spill contingency plan with support from the International Maritime Organization and the UN Environmental Programme.
Between 1998 and 2003, Mauritius was one of the beneficiaries of the Western Indian Ocean Island Oil Spill Contingency Planning project run by the World Bank. Through the assistance of the project, the government updated the national contingency plan. Workshops and training were conducted, and a regional agreement signed.
The Marine Highway Development and Prevention Project running from 2007 to 2012 continued this work. Funded by the Global Environmental Facility the country received more training in oil spill prevention and reviewed the plan. After the end of this project Mauritius received training under the UNEP’s Regional Seas Programme and the Nairobi Convention.
In addition, the country is also one of the main beneficiaries of the MASE project of the European Union under which maritime security structures are developed for the region.
The Report • September 2020 • Issue 93 | 87
As part of these projects, between 2003 and 2012, the country held five larger exercises and drills on oil spill prevention. Moreover, Mauritius had plans to conduct an exercise later this year.
In short, the country benefitted from quite substantial capacity building assistance by the United Nations family and other actors. Governmental representatives regularly participated in workshops and conducted training exercises.
Level of Preparedness Only some months before the disaster occurred, governmental officials attended a workshop on the theme. In March 2020 the UN Environmental Programme organised the workshop on ‘Cooperation in preparedness and response to marine pollution incidents’ in Zanzibar.
As the records show, representatives from the ministry of environment and the ministry of fisheries of Mauritius attended. They gave a presentation on the countries “national oil spill preparedness status”. The records of the meeting reveal, first, that officials were very well aware that the country is at a high risk of oil spills due to the vicinity of one of the world’s busiest shipping routes. Second, it documents that the country had a range of sophisticated planning, response and disaster assessment tools. Third, the Mauritian officials highlighted that not all elements of the strategy were very practical, and that some components of it were missing, such as a wildlife response plan.
The presenters emphasized that regional cooperation was not working very well, and that
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