The pilot activities of the UNDP-UNEP Partnership Initiative clearly showed the need for strengthening national legal and institutional infrastructures. While these provide an enabling framework for sustained implementation of the national SMC policy, the increasing complexity of chemicals management often prevents national officers from progressing on this front.
In response, the Swedish Chemicals Agency (KEMI) and UNEP Chemicals Branch have therefore collaborated to develop a project to assist developing countries and countries with economies in transition in the expansion of such infrastructure, focusing on the initial preventive steps in the supply chain of chemicals that are taken before or when chemicals are placed on the market.
The project had three specific objectives:
1. Identify and assess the needs and barriers (excluding financing concerns) for the development of chemicals control legal and institutional infrastructure in developing countries and countries with economies in transition;
2. Develop a toolkit for facilitating national legal and institutional infrastructures development and test the toolkit in a number of countries from the four UN regions, focusing on developing countries and countries with economies in transition; and
3. Ensure that the toolkit for aiding the development of national institutions and legal infrastructures explicitly meets the needs of national governments.
As a start, a series of regional workshops were held in four developing countries or countries with economies in transition. These workshops were held to identify and assess the needs and non-financial barriers for the development of national institutions and legal infrastructures in these countries, together with a discussion and recommendation for the elements of a toolkit to meet the needs and overcome the barriers identified.
Documents from each of the workshops are provided below.
Workshop 1: Riga, Latvia, on 7-8 December 2006
Draft agenda
Information for participants
Draft proceedings
Workshop 2: Bangkok, Thailand, on 24-25 May 2007
Draft agenda
Draft proceedings
Information note
Questions for the working group
Workshop 3: Panama City, Panama, on 12-13 February 2008
Draft proceedings
Draft agenda; Espanol
Information note
Workshop 4 : Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, on 14-15 July 2008
Draft agenda
Information note
Questions for the working group
Building on the conclusions of the four regional workshops, a draft toolkit was developed on the development of legal and institutional infrastructures.
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