GHG SMART

Funded by the Republic of Korea (RoK) with a budget of USD 4.5 million and implemented by the International Maritime Organization (IMO), GHG SMART's main aim is to support LDCs and SIDS with the implementation of the IMO GHG Strategy via building sufficient human capacity in these countries. This includes development of a comprehensive training programme and post-training monitoring, evaluation, and refinement.

Capacity Building

LDCs and SIDS are invited to nominate delegations to benefit not only from virtual training, but also from the possibility of field visits and familiarisation with industry. 

National maritime GHG emissions champions nominated by participating LDCs and SIDS are trained by Subject Matter Experts (SME) on all aspects of the IMO GHG Strategy to enable these countries to be actively engaged in policy making, national action planning and raising finance to implement the National Action Plans. 

The Programme consists of:

• the development of a training package, 
• delivery of a series of 5-day training course using the training package, over the next 3 years,
• post-training monitoring, evaluation, and refinement of the overall training programme, and
• programme management and governance. 

The training package includes the following:

1. state of global regulations, MARPOL Annex VI and IMO GHG Strategy;
2. impact assessments: follow-up on tools and key findings from studies to date;
3. national policy, action plan and strategy, best practices/potential update needs;
4. financing aspects to support implementation of IMO GHG Strategy measures; 
5. available and future technologies and best practices for GHG reduction for ships, including those in the development stage and those that have already been put into practice;
6. available and future fuels for shipping decarbonisation; and 
7. training of trainers for all the above elements.

Participating SIDS and LDCs will be invited to send delegations to Republic of Korea to benefit not only from the in-class training but also via field visits and familiarisation with industry as a unique feature of this programme.

National maritime GHG emissions champions will be trained from participating SIDS and LDCs on all aspects of the IMO GHG Strategy to enable these countries to actively take part in policy making, national action planning and raising finance to implement the national action plans.

Lead to more active participation of SIDS and LDCs in international and IMO policy making debates and decision making.

Furthermore, the programme establishes two (2) annual scholarships for an in-person Master of studies at the World Maritime University (WMU) for two (2) participants, one male and one female in line with gender equality.

The 2022 and 2023 sessions of the Programme have so far provided training to almost 50 participants from over 30 countries. The Call for Nominations for the 2024 cycle is currently opened and IMO Member States, as well as countries that are not IMO Members but are signatories to MARPOL Annex VI, are invited to submit nominations (please refer to Circular Letter 4808 available on this page).

The online Core Training is expected to take place from 27 to 31 May 2024.

Sustainable Development goals 

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development provides a shared blueprint for prosperity for people and the planet, now and into the future. At its heart are the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which are an urgent call for action in a global partnership. Among the SDGs, SDG 14 is central to IMO, but the work of IMO and GHG SMART can also be linked to other SDGs, as can be seen below.