In Partnership for Global Chemical SafetyIFCS/FORUM IV/4INF
IFCS IV
Fourth Meeting of the
Intergovernmental Forum on Chemical Safety
Bangkok, Thailand
1 7 November 2003
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Programme Area E
Fourth Survey of OECD Member Country
Development Assistance Activities
for CapacityBuilding
Prepared by OECD
FOURTH SURVEY OF OECD MEMBER COUNTRY
DEVELOPMENT ASSISTANCE ACTIVITIES
FOR CAPACITYBUILDING
This document provides a summary and analysis of the information reported by OECD Member countries concerning the development assistance they provide to developing countries, including those with economies in transition, for capacity building in the field of chemicals and pesticides management.
Eighteen OECD Member countries and the European Commission reported on 436 projects altogether during the first (1996), second (1998), third (2000) and fourth (2003) surveys. A table containing an overview of these projects is attached.
Results of the four OECD surveys are also available on the Internet site
of the OECD Environmental Health and Safety division, at:
BACKGROUND
Context of the OECD surveys
In 1996, the Intersessional Group (ISG) of the Intergovernmental Forum on Chemical Safety (IFCS) which is responsible for overseeing the implementation of Agenda 21, Chapter 19, invited the OECD to develop an information exchange programme on ‘capacity building’ (Area E). The specific objectives were:
- to facilitate co-ordination of capacity building assistance provided by OECD Member countries to developing countries, including those with economies in transition, in the field of chemicals/pesticides management, and
- to enable further discussions on capacity building, in particular at the time of the IFCS/ISG meetings.
This project complemented activities conducted through the Inter-organisation Programme for the Sound Management of Chemicals (IOMC) to co-ordinate capacity building activities of multi-lateral organisations. In response, the OECD conducted:
- the first survey in 1996, with results available at the IFCS II meeting in Ottawa, in February 1997 (document IFCS/FORUM-II/97.10B),
- the second survey in 1998, with results available at the ISG 3 meeting in Yokohama, in November 1998 (document IFCS/ISG3/98.25B), and
- the third survey in 2000, with results available at the IFSC III meeting in Salvador de Bahia, Brazil, in October 2000 (document IFCS/FORUM III/20 INF).
As agreed in June 1997 by the OECD Joint Meeting on Chemicals, the information collected is regularly updated and the survey is undertaken every two/three years, with results available for IFCS/ISG meetings.
Fourth survey (2003)
In October 2002, in view of the IFCS IV meeting, the OECD Secretariat therefore initiated the fourth survey and contacted the Heads of Delegations to the OECD Joint Meeting, as well as all relevant sub-groups (e.g. those involved in pesticide management, in chemical accidents), and the DAC’s Working Party on Development Assistance and Environment. Member countries were asked to report on new development assistance projects initiated since the first, second and third surveys and to revise 1996-1998-2000 information if necessary.
In order to update their information, countries were requested to complete a reporting form (annex 1). For each project, countries were to provide a listing of their ministries involved (and contact names), the collaborating parties (if any), the partner/recipient country(ies), the title of the project and when it was scheduled to begin and end. In addition, countries were asked to describe each project according to a list of terms which referred to both capacity building (e.g., “Development of Legislation/Regulations”, “Education / Training / Human Resources Development”, “Awareness Raising”) and chemicals (e.g. “Testing”, “Safe Production, Use, Control of Emissions and Disposal of Toxic Substances”) terminologies. Finally, countries were given an option to report additional information including a narrative description and an Internet reference, and whether there was monetary funding and/or technical assistance provided.
The data collected during this fourth survey was added to the simple database (using Microsoft Access) created to store the information previously provided by countries. Based on all the information received in 1996, 1998, 2000 and 2003, the report in annex 2 has been prepared. As providing all of the information for each project is not feasible, the attached report contains only those items thought to be of most interest: names of donor and recipient country, title, length and Internet address (when available), description of project, and year(s) the project was reported or updated (e.g. ‘1996’, ‘1998’, ‘2000’, ‘2003’, ‘1996 (2000), 1998 (2000, 2003)’, the latter examples indicating that projects already reported in 1998 were updated in 2000 and in 2003). Various other reports can be produced using the database, depending on the types of interest. Upon request to the OECD Secretariat, more complete information on particular projects can be provided.
Finally, for this fourth survey, a few changes have been made to the reporting form in order to comply with the requirements of the Information Exchange Network on CapacityBuilding for the Sound Management of Chemicals, INFOCAP. This network consists of a database of services being developed under the auspices of the IFCS. Its goal is to enhance the exchange and public accessibility of information relevant to capacity-building projects. It is planned that information collected by the OECD surveys will added to the INFOCAP database and made available at
Responses received
As of 15th April 2003, 18 OECD Member countries and the European Commission described altogether 436 projects, among which 128 new ones were reported during the fourth survey in 2003(this is the highest number of projects ever reported in one survey round) . Countries also updated data on a number of their projects previously reported in 1996, 1998 and 2000.
The countries/organisations that responded to the four surveys are listed in Table 1 below. The numbers of new projects reported each time are shown, together with, in parentheses, the number of projects that were updated (where applicable).
Table 1
Countries or Organisations / 1st surveyin 1996 / 2nd survey
in 1998 / 3rd survey
in 2000 / 4th survey
in 2003 / Total of projects
1. Australia / 9 / 2 / (4) / 2 / (4) / - / 13
2. Austria / - / 1 / - / 4 / 5
3. Belgium / 2 / 1 / 1 / 1 / (1) / 5
4. Canada / 2 / 26 / 16 / (2) / 9 / 53
5. Denmark / 9 / 41 / 25 / (3) / 12 / (15) / 87
6. Finland / 4 / 4 / (2) / 3 / (2) / 8 / (4) / 19
7. France / 9 / 1 / 7 / 5 / 22
8. Germany / 10 / 10 / (2) / 10 / (9) / 20 / (7) / 50
9. Hungary / - / - / 1 / 1 / (1) / 2
10. Japan / 6 / 0 / (3) / - / 19 / (1) / 25
11. Korea / - / 4 / 0 / (1) / - / 4
12. Netherlands / - / 10 / - / 15 / (1) / 25
13. Norway / 6 / 5 / (2) / 5 / (3) / - / 16
14. Portugal / 4 / - / - / - / 4
15. Sweden / 12 / 3 / (3) / 0 / (3) / 11 / 26
16. Switzerland / 9 / 0 / (4) / 0 / (6) / - / 9
17. United Kingdom / 12 / 2 / 9 / 23 / (5) / 46
18. United States / 14 / 4 / (10) / - / - / 18
European Commission / 7 / 0 / (4) / - / - / 7
115 / 114 / (34) / 79 / (33) / 128 / (35) / 436
ANALYSIS OF INFORMATION SUBMITTED
A short analysis of the information provided in 1996, 1998, 2000 and 2003 is given below, in a similar way as what was done in the past.
Preliminary comments
The range of responses varied widely from country to country; considerable descriptive information was provided for some projects, while little were provided for others. In addition, as it was recognised initially, it is not always easy to identify projects dealing specifically with chemicals and pesticides management. Some countries indicated that they had some difficulties in finding such projects while they could easily identify some larger ‘environmental’ activities that contained a chemical component. Therefore, in order to collect as much as relevant information as possible, the survey asked countries to report on all projects that contain a chemical management part. Finally, some countries indicated that given the length of assistance projects, i.e. often several years, they had difficulties in reporting ‘new’ projects every 2 or 3 years. They suggested to run this survey less frequently.
Donor and recipient countries
The reporting form first requested information on donor and recipient countries and on possible collaborating parties.
- In donor countries more than half of the projects (220) were managed by national agencies/offices for international development/co-operation, sometimes jointly with other relevant ministries/agencies. Ministries/agencies of environment ran 104 projects, while ministries/agencies for foreign affairs were responsible for 82. Most of the remaining projects were managed by ministries/agencies of agriculture, health, industry, economy, labour or trade; however, these other ministries often worked through their department/section in charge of international development. In a few cases, national institutes (e.g., research, natural resources) were in charge of the projects.
- In recipient countries, information about the partner organisations (e.g. ministries/agencies) was provided for only 279 projects. Ministries of environment, in 68 cases, and of agriculture/forestry/rural development, in 38 cases, primarily ran the projects. In 24 reported cases, various institutes (e.g., medical research, water/irrigation) and universities (e.g., of agriculture, technology) were involved in the projects. In cases where two or more countries together received assistance, a ‘forum’ or a ‘board’ gathering the governments involved sometimes administered the projects. Lastly, a number of public/private associations also participated in the projects.
- Collaborating parties that jointly administer and/or finance assistance activities were identified for almost half of the projects (206). Amongst such partners, IOMC organisations, UNDP, the World Bank, some universities, institutes, foundations, or other non-governmental organizations (e.g., industry, public-interest organizations such as CARE and PAN) were often mentioned.
Donor countries identified the recipient countries in various ways. For 308 projects, donor countries gave aid to one specific country. For 91 others, a group of countries or simply a geographic area (e.g. Central America, Southern Africa, Pacific countries) was reported. In the remaining projects, donor countries indicated that their aid was provided to some “developing countries” within a region or “world-wide”. In all:
- 132 of the projects were aimed at helping African/Middle-East countries,
- 113 for the Asian/Pacific area,
- 95 for Central/South America and the Caribbean region,
- 58 for the Newly Independent States (of the Former Soviet Union) and the three Baltic countries, and
- 26 for Eastern Europe.
The geographic distribution of the projects has remained almost unchanged since the previous survey rounds.
Chart 1 - Geographic distribution of assistance projects
Types of projects
The next part of the reporting form asked some more specific questions about the projects themselves. In addition to the title, which could provide a general description of the type of project, countries were also asked to describe their projects according to various parameters.
- Category - The categories most often mentioned to describe projects were (number of occurrences in brackets):
-“Education / Training / Human Resources Development” (280),
-“Development of Guidance Documents” (117),
-“Information Generation, Gathering, Use and Dissemination”(106),
-“Implementation, Enforcement, Monitoring & Compliance with Legislation or Mandatory Programmes” (89),
-“Development of Legislation/Regulations” (84), and
-“Encouraging Community Participation” (83).
The first category listed above originally included the component “Awareness Raising” which became for the 2003 survey, a separate category. The latter was chosen to describe 37 projects.
- Sector - Almost half of the projects (194) were described as falling within the area of assistance for pesticides management, whereas only 108 projects for chemicals management. However, an additional 77 projects fell within both areas. For 55 projects, a specific ‘sector’ was provided (e.g., lead, waste, biopesticides, POPs). For the remaining 34 projects, no sector was identified.
- Sub-sectors - The activities most often indicated were:
-“Risk Reduction/Management” (141),
-“Safe Production, Use Control of Emissions and Disposal of Toxic Substances” (111),
-“Hazard/Risk Assessment” (84),
-“Pollution Prevention, Waste Minimisation and Industrial Environmental Management”(82),
-“Testing” (77), and
-“GLP ” (63).
Two new categories were added for the 2003 round: “Obsolete chemicals and pesticides” (20) and “Human Health” (10).
- The duration of the projects varied considerably. Of the 361 projects for which project duration was reported:
-25 (7%) lasted only a few days or weeks (e.g. training, workshops),
-39 (11%) were 3-9 months-long,
-105 (29%) lasted 1-2 years,
-131 (36%) were for 3-5 years,
-54 (15%) lasted 6-9 years, and
-7 (2%) lasted 10 or more years.
As of 15th of April 2003, two third (294) of the reported projects are terminated. The others are still on-going, often with an indication of an end date.
Additional information (optional reporting)
In order to lessen the burden of reporting, countries were only asked to respond to a few questions regarding descriptions of their projects. However, countries had the option of providing answers to more specific questions that requested information on the type of assistance, i.e., technical and/or financial. Respondents could also complement the reporting forms by attaching any document describing their projects or providing an Internet site where more information could be found. Most responses contained answers to at least one question in the optional part of the survey.
- Countries provided information concerning the type of assistance (technical or financial) for 352 projects. Of these projects, technical assistance was provided for 148 projects, financial aid for 95 projects, and a combination of both for 109 projects. Quantification of the amount of aid, either monetary or technical (e.g., cost of project staff), was given for 301 projects.
- For 188 of the projects, an additional narrative description was provided. These descriptions varied from a few words/lines to several pages of text (e.g. project outlines, project fact sheets). When an Internet address was given, it can be found under the title and duration of the projects (third column of the table in Annex 2).
Possibilities for co-operation and co-ordination
One of the original reasons for initiating this project was to increase efficiencies in donor assistance and avoid duplication. Although the project descriptions provided by countries are not extremely detailed, they can be used to point to areas where consultation between donor countries may be worthwhile. For instance, there are countries which receive assistance on pesticides projects from three or four different donor countries. While those facts alone do not necessarily mean there is duplication, it could point to an area where the donor countries could discuss their projects amongst themselves and see if there are areas for co-operation.
Similarly, a country considering or currently providing aid could review the types of projects listed in the database to see if any country is engaged in a similar activity. Although the recipient countries for such assistance may be different, it may be worthwhile for the donor countries to exchange documents or share experiences. For instance, many countries indicated that they were “providing education and training” for the safe use of pesticides. Thus, it is possible that these countries could benefit from an exchange of any educational or training material they provide to the recipient countries.
For further information
Please contact the OECD Secretariat for obtaining more information (e.g., contact names, funding, narrative description if any) about a project listed in Annex 2. Please indicate the project OECD reference number (last column of the table in Annex 2).
OECDFax:33 1 45 24 79 03
Environmental Health and SafetyE-mail:
2, rue André-Pascal, F-75775 Paris cedex 16, France
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In Partnership for Global Chemical SafetyIFCS/FORUM IV/4INF
ANNEX 1
REPORTING FORM
FOR THE FOURTH SURVEY OF OECD MEMBER COUNTRY
DEVELOPMENT ASSISTANCE ACTIVITIES
FOR CAPACITYBUILDING
IN THE FIELD OF CHEMICALS/PESTICIDES MANAGEMENT
Distributed to OECD Member countries on 9 October 2002,
with responses due by 13 January 2003.
Fourth Survey of OECD Member Country
Development Assistance Activities for CapacityBuilding
in the Field of Chemicals/Pesticides Management
PROJECT REPORTING FORM
(Please use one form per project)
1.Status of the Project
Please indicate whether you are reporting on a new projector
you are updating information on an on-going project already reported in 1996-1998-2000.
If so, please enter its reference number (see Document 1):
2. Donor Country Identification
Donor CountryMain Ministry/Agency
Address
Contact Name
Tel.
Fax
Other Ministry/Agency
Address
Contact Name
Tel.
Fax
3. Collaborating Parties
Other parties which are participating in the project:4. Partner/Recipient Country(ies) Identification
Partner/Recipientcountry(ies)
Main partner organisation
(e.g. ministry/agency)
Address
Contact Name
Tel.
Fax
Other partner organisation
(e.g. ministry/agency)
Address
Contact Name
Tel.
Fax
E-mail:
5. Title of the project
6. Duration of the project
Start Date:End Date:
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7. Project Description
Please place a check mark () next to each item that best describes your aid programme. You may place more than one check mark in each column: / CATEGORY / / SECTOR / / SUBSECTOR
1. Development of Legislation/Regulations / 1. Chemicals / 1. Testing (Hazard Identification)
2. Implementation, Enforcement, Monitoring & Compliance with Legislation or Mandatory Programmes / 2. Pesticides / 2. Exposure Analysis
3. Information Generation, Gathering, Use and Dissemination / Other * / 3. Hazard/Risk Assessment (Risk Characterisation)
4. Creation / Management of Databases / (please list) / 4. Hazard/Risk Communication (labelling, MSDS, etc.)
5. Development of Inventories/Registers / 5. Classification of Products
6. Development of Guidance Documents / 6. Pesticide Registration
7. Conduct of Economic Analysis / 7. Good Laboratory Practice
8. Design and Conduct of Research / 8. Risk Reduction/Management (e.g., controls)
9. Quality Control / 9. Safe Production, Use, Control of Emissions and Disposal of Toxic Substances (e.g., Clean technology)
10. Education / Training / Human Resources Development / 10. Import/Export of Substances (e.g., PIC)
11. Encouraging Community Participation (e.g. right-to-know) / 11. Chemical Emergency Preparedness and Response
12. Development of Partnerships with Industry / 12. Life-cycle analysis
13. Awareness Raising / 13. Pollution Prevention, waste minimisation and Industrial Environmental management
Other (please list) / 14. National Profile Development
15. Obsolete chemicals and pesticides
16. Human health
Other (please list)
* pharmaceuticals, fertilisers and products of biotechnology are not to be included
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ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
8. Narrative Description of the Project & Web documents
Please attach any short existing document you have which describes the project.Please indicate any relevant project web site and/or documents posted on the web.
(please provide Internet address if any)
9. Type of Assistance for the Project