Overview
The UNEP GEF project 2 was initiated as a follow-up of the UNEP/GEF GMP1 project to continue capacity building activities in the Developing countries to monitor Persistent Organic pollutants under the Stockholm Convention. Article 16 of the Convention requires assessment of globally comparable monitoring data to determine the effectiveness of the Convention. In this line, comparable data is required from all the UN regions to determine trends in the POPs levels in the core-media, namely: Ambient air, mother’s milk and water. In addition data from other media of national and regional priority is critical to explain the potential sources of POPs measured in the core-media.
Whereas it is critical to provide globally comparable data, it is underscored that regional countries are at different levels with respect to POPs analysis: in terms of both human and analytical capacities. Consequently, the GMP implementation framework adopted establishment of the strategic partners to provide globally comparable data to support prompt reporting of POPs levels in the core media, while the step by step approach is followed to build capacities of the regional countries.
The UNEP/GEF GMP2 project was developed to strengthen capacity of the regional countries to analyse the nine additional POPs in the core media. The major project outputs are highlighted in section 1(c) above. The next section outlines the implementation status of the project activities.