22 November 2019, Kampala, Uganda ̶ Today saw the close of a three-day twinning workshop and border dialogues for National Ozone Officers and Customs officials from countries of the East African Region – Africa Anglophone Network. The workshop, held from 20-22 November 2019, was organised by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) OzonAction in collaboration with the Government of Uganda, National Environment Management Authority (NEMA). This practical and focused workshop was honoured to have the participation of the Executive Director of NEMA, Dr. Tom O. Okurut and Milton Rahuka, Manager Customs, Uganda Revenue Authority who opened the meeting, along with Mr Patrick Salifu, Regional Network Coordinator, UNEP Africa Office.
The workshop had a varied agenda consisting of presentations, discussions, practical demonstrations and working groups as well as interactive exercises to consider overall challenges in the region and good practices on ODS trade controls. The meeting also focused on the management of seized and unwanted ODS, facilitating legal trade and combatting illegal trade of environmentally sensitive commodities. A significant portion of the workshop was dedicated to sharing of enforcement mechanisms, cooperation activities and available information materials and resources. The final day of the workshop was dedicated to bilateral discussions, which allowed countries, in a confidential setting, to examine their import-export statistics and compare with trading partners and explore the differences in reported in import-export data. A parallel session on ODS identification practical exercises with refrigerant identifiers and demonstration of OzonAction smartphone applications was also conducted.
The workshop was part of the 2019 work plan of UN Environment Programme Compliance Assistance Programme (CAP) to support countries in implementing their Montreal Protocol commitments.
FOR MORE INFORMATION:
Patrick Salifu
Regional Network Coordinator, Anglophone Africa
E-mail: Patrick.salifu@un.org
Ezra Clark
Capacity Building Manager
E-mail: ezra.clark@un.org
