By Mr. Robert C. Hedlund, Integrated Pest Management adviser, USAID
This paper was initially prepared for USAID by
Rich Tobin, Winrock International. It examines the environmental
consequences of the pesticide policies of bilateral donor agencies
that are designed to promote agricultural trade or production in
sub-Saharan Africa. The analysis focuses on bilateral development
assistance in France, Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom and the
United States.
Particular attention is paid to USAID policies from
1961 to the present. In the 1960s, USAID was reluctant to impose
United States values or policy preferences on recipients of United
States assistance. Throughout the decade, USAID allowed all
recipients of its assistance to purchase any pesticides they desired
and to determine how these pesticides would be used within their
borders. In 1971, USAID developed a "positive list" of commodities,
including pesticides that were eligible for agency financing.
By 1994, the approved list contained more than 90
different active ingredients available in almost 275 different
package and unit sizes. From July 1972 until March 1976, USAID
financed approximately 9 000 tonnes of pesticides. In 1995, four
United States environmental groups filed suits against USAID alleging
the agency had been negligent in considering the potential
environmental impacts of its procurement of pesticides. USAID lost
the suit and was required to prepare an environmental impact
statement on its pesticide procurement policies. One result of this
was USAID's decision to issue comprehensive regulations governing the
environmental assessment of all its activities, including pesticide
procurement.
Final regulations were published in 1976 (in 22
Code of Federal Regulations, Part 216) and are referred to as Reg.
16. The regulations strongly discourage procurement of pesticides for
purposes other than specific project assistance. Since the
publication of Reg. 16, only one non-project assistance procurement
of pesticides has been approved, for the emergency use of pesticides
in a disaster relief programme in Bolivia.
USAID hopes that Reg. 16 will encourage bilateral
donors, especially Japan which provides as much as 50 to 75 percent
of total imports of pesticides to many African countries, to follow
its example.