Regional training supports West and Central Africa inventories of obsolete pesticides towards elimination
Bamako, Mali
A regional training on planning and inventory techniques for obsolete pesticides and associated waste was held in Bamako, Mali from 30 January to 3 February 2017 and attended by 31 participants from 14 countries of West and Central Africa (Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, Gambia, Guinea Bissau, Mauritania, Niger, Senegal, Chad, Guinea, Liberia, São Tomé and Príncipe, Sierra Leone and Togo).
The training is part of a regional project financed by the Global Environment Facility (GEF) to strengthen the capacities of member countries of the " Comité permanent Inter Etats de Lutte contre la Sécheresse au Sahel " (CILSS) in rational management of pesticides, including the elimination of 850 tonnes of obsolete pesticides.
The project is co-financed by the regional organisations : the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the CILSS and the "Union Economique et Monétaire Ouest Africaine" (UEMOA) and is part of a regional initiative to reduce Pests and pesticides in the Sahel and West Africa (PPM-SWA) that combines the GEF project with other projects in the subregion. In addition, for this training, FAO has partnered with an NGO, Green Cross, in charge of the implementation of a UNEP project, also funded by the GEF under the Stockholm Convention on POPs .
The inventory of pesticides and associated waste is the first link in the chain of the disposal process. It allows to collect all data on pesticide waste, its storage conditions and the situation of pesticide store and storage sites, in order to better plan operations for safeguarding the material and disposing of it.
The training focused on the characteristics and risks of pesticides and contaminated materials, as well as inventory methods, from planning, to data collection through to registration. The FAO Pesticide Stock Management System (PSMS) application was presented to participants to record and use future inventory data and quantify site risk.
Participants also had on-site practical training to make the inventory obsolete pesticides according to the methods learned in class, including ensuring safety of people and environment and usage of personal protective equipment (PPE) during each technical step. This part of training took place on real sites in Mali and were supervised by expert trainers, including the PEPPO (Project for the Elimination and Prevention of Obsolete Pesticides) team of the Ministry of the Environment of Mali.
Finally the training allowed participants to plan next steps leading to the elimination of obsolete pesticides, namely national trainings and the inventories.
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