The Africa Stockpiles Programme (ASP) today announced that the European Union has contributed 1 million EUROS to the recently established Multi-Donor Trust Fund, becoming the first ASP partner to deliver on its pledge to help launch the program.
The ASP is an unprecedented partnership between industry, governments, private foundations, civil society, and international organizations, who have agreed to pool resources and expertise in a collaborative, comprehensive effort to rid Africa of polluting stockpiles of obsolete pesticides.
An estimated 50,000 tons of obsolete pesticides, as well as tens of thousands of tons of contaminated soil and associated wastes, have accumulated in stockpiles throughout the African continent.
“The European Union is proud to support this worthy program in its efforts to dispose of obsolete pesticides in Africa,” said Francisco De Angelis, Director at the European Commission’s EuropeAid Cooperation Office. “Environment is one of the pillars of sustainable development, and is a guiding principle of our development cooperation policy. We hope that with this program, African countries will rid themselves of this deplorable threat. They will also strengthen their capacities and set up mechanisms for a sound management of chemicals in the future, in conformity with Multilateral Environment Agreements such as the Stockholm Convention on persistent organic pollutants. This will be positive for the environment both locally and globally.”
Reacting to the announcement, Ian Johnson, World Bank Vice President for Sustainable Development, underlined that “The World Bank is dedicated to the clean-up across the continent, and very much appreciates the European Union’s commitment.”
According to Johnson “The ASP is precisely the sort of local initiative with global impact the World Bank envisioned when we recently articulated the principles of our Environment Strategy particularly by channeling funds to developing countries to help them meet the costs of global environment challenges. We are hoping the ASP will become the model for how all stakeholders can come together to cooperate on a major initiative to the benefit of, not just poor people in Africa, but to the global environmental advantage of everyone.”
The objective of the ASP is to clear all obsolete pesticide stocks from Africa in an environmentally sound manner, and to put in place measures to prevent their recurrence. An initial $48 million committed by the partnership will be used to prepare programs and to clean up six African countries (Ethiopia, Mali, Morocco, South Africa, Tanzania, and Tunisia), as well as prepare nine more for clean up. Major initial financial contributors include the Global Environment Facility (GEF), CropLife International, and the governments of Belgium, Japan, Canada, France, Finland, Norway, Sweden, and Switzerland.
ASP partners include:
The African Development Bank, the African Union, the Basel Convention Secretariat, Canada, CropLife International, the European Union, the Food & Agricultural Organization (FAO), the Ford Foundation, the French Republic, Japan, the Kingdom of Belgium, the Kingdom of Norway, the Kingdom of Sweden, the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD), the Pesticides Action Network-Africa (PAN-Africa), the Pesticides Action Network-UK (PAN-UK), the Swiss Confederation, the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA), the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), the World Bank, and the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF).
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