The cotton fields of sub-Saharan Africa hold a deadly secret—thousands of tons of obsolete pesticides are buried out of sight but slowly taking a toxic toll on the region’s people and environment.
On 4 December, 2015, IPEN Participating Organization Armenian Women for Health and Healthy Environment (AWHHE) represented the Armenian civil society sector at the inception workshop of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) / Global Environment Facility (GEF) full-sized project "Elimination of obsolete pesticide stockpiles and addressing POPs-contaminated sites within a sound chemicals management framework." The workshop, organized by the UNDP-Armenia office, was opened by the Deputy Minister of the Ministry of Nature protection RA.
Eco-Accord, IPEN Regional Hub for Eastern Europe, Caucasus and Central Asia (EECCA), prepared an overview of information from the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR), the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and EECCA countries about the need to report emissions and releases from obsolete pesticide stockpiles through pollutant release and transfer register (PRTR) systems in EECCA countries.
On August 11, 2015, in Minsk, Belarus, the second sub-regional seminar of IPEN Participating Organisations was completed. The event was coordinated by Eco-Accord, IPEN Hub for Eastern Europe, Caucasus and Central Asia (EECCA), and Centre of Environmental Solutions (CES), Belarus, and was attended by NGOs from Azerbaijan, Armenia, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova, Russia and Ukraine, and representatives of IPEN and the Organization for Security and Co-operation (OSCE) in Ukraine. They discussed issues associated with strengthening civil society organisations working on chemical safety. The first seminar of the series was held in June 2015, in Almaty, for Central Asia countries.