The Global Environment Facility (GEF) will provide Ukraine with $350,000 in grant assistance as part of the project to improve the situation with hazardous chemicals in the country. According to the GEF’s report released on Tuesday, April 17, the project aims to monitor and assess the real situation throughout Ukraine regarding the quantity and condition of hazardous chemicals, update the national implementation plan for Ukraine’s international obligations on the management of unsuitable chemicals, and ensure the reporting by the Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources of Ukraine to the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants.
The GEF noted that on September 5, 2007, Ukraine ratified the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants, recognizing the need to draw up a national plan for the implementation of its obligations, which should be regularly submitted to the Secretariat of the Convention.
Despite the preparation of such a plan and the beginning of the export of unsuitable chemicals for destruction to EU countries since 2007, Ukraine continues to struggle with a number of problems, among them the impossibility of a reliable assessment of the status of treatment and the quantity of extremely hazardous chemicals available through their storage in unsuitable places and limited access to them.
The GEF said that according to the latest assessment of the treatment of obsolete and banned pesticides in Ukraine, in January 2013, there were 11 tonnes of unsuitable chemicals in the country located on the territory of 1,200 storage facilities.
Under the provisions of the Stockholm Convention, developing countries and countries with transition economies are able to obtain additional funds for the development and updating of the National Implementation Plan. Under such a mechanism, the GEF announced the provision of respective grants at the 5th meeting of the Conference of the Parties. Ukraine has become one of the beneficiaries of the program.
