Partner States of East African Community (EAC) - Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, South Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda - are collaborating to promote sound life cycle pesticide management with FAO support through the EU funded programme on Capacity Building related to Multilateral Environmental Agreements – Phase 3 (“ACP MEAs 3”). The joint regional work plan responds to the directives of the 8^th EAC Sectoral Council on Agriculture and Food Security held in January, 2016. The ultimate aim of regional collaboration and harmonization on pesticide registration in the EAC is to harness limited financial and technical resources within the region, improve trade and ensure better agricultural production while minimizing adverse impacts of pesticides to the human population and the environment.

In 2021, the EAC Secretariat, FAO and the Centre for Pesticide Suicide Prevention (CPSP) of the University of Edinburgh, prepared a roadmap to address Highly Hazardous Pesticides (HHPs). The EAC Technical Working Group on HHPs (HHP TWG), has since been working on the development of the EAC HHP Strategy. Two meetings of the TWG took place in Kigali, Rwanda, to review the strategy drafts. The last meeting on 6-10 February 2023 was held back-to-back with a two-day training on HHP risk reduction that focused on the FAO/WHO HHP Guidelines (2016) and the new FAO e-learning course on HHPs.

The next steps will see the HHP draft strategy reviewed during national consultations in the countries and further regional training on the FAO Pesticide Registration Toolkit for sound management of pesticides.