Management of Chemicals in English-Speaking African Countries

African countries face many problems when they implement international environmental agreements. Having signed and ratifiedⁱi international environmental conventions, implementation in some countries remain poor because most of these conventions require domestication through national policies and programmes.

This project is aimed at strengthening the countries in the English speaking African region that are served by the Africa Institute (AI) to control and manage in an environmentally sound manner the movements of chemicals in the context of multilateral environmental agreements that they are parties to. To the extent possible the countries will also exchange experiences since they are at different development levels with regard to chemicals management.

The focus of the project will cover chemicals in the broadest sense but more specifically the Basel, Stockholm and Rotterdam Conventions. Project funding is provided by the Swedish Chemicals agency (KEMI). These are the conventions that are fundamentally the focus of the Institute. This project aims to reduce the hazard that communities face from chemicals that are used domestically, within the agricultural sector and within industries in these countries. Many chemicals are hazardous in nature and they present extremely dangerous situation in African countries where there are poor regulatory mechanisms. The project builds on work done by the BCRC Pretoria.

The main objective of the this project is enhance sustainable chemicals management in the English Speaking African countries.

The specific objectives are:
•  To assess the institutional arrangements and capacity of national institutions to manage chemicals in participating countries.
•  To assess the regulatory instrument utilized in chemicals management in participating countries
•  To facilitate peer review mechanism through workshops whereby participants from the participating countries collectively will discuss issues and develop recommendations.
•  To promote the implementation of GHS as a vehicle towards environmentally sound management of chemicals in the region.
• To promote harmonised approach in participating countries for chemicals management.

The project is divided into two phases as follows:
Phase 1 : Legal assessment and institutional gaps and needs analysis in the management of chemicals. Participating countries are: Botswana, Lesotho, Mauritius, Namibia, Nigeria, South Africa and Tanzania
Phase 2: Enhancement of implementation and enforcement capacity through training and capacity building. This will be achieved by conducting four regional workshops as follows:

  
Note: Zambia will also participate during this workshops.

Progress on Project Implementation
Phase 1:Legal assessment and institutional gaps and needs analysis in the management of chemicals