10 October 2006, Minsk (Belarus Hotel) became the venue for a workshop dedicated to discussion of the concept of a full-scale GEF project on POPs management in Belarus. Among the participants of the workshop were representatives of the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environmental Protection, the World Bank, an international expert of the project, officials from the Ministry of Economy, the Ministry of Industry, the Ministry of Energy, representatives of industrial companies Belshina and Polymir, scientific and non-governmental organisations and mass media.
The workshop participants were offered an opportunity to discuss the conceptual structure and content of a proposed full-scale international technical assistance project which would address the POPs-related problems in Belarus. The project concept had been jointly developed by the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environmental Protection of Belarus, the World Bank, and other stakeholders. The workshop agenda included a presentation by Yuri Soloviev on the full-scale project’s structure, activities and objectives. Another presentation, made by Director of Belarusian Research Centre ECOLOGY Oleg Bely, was about the project’s stance on the management of obsolete POPs pesticides and elimination of burial sites for obsolete pesticide stockpiles. N. Sviridovich, Senior Specialist from the Department of State Regulation of Environmental Monitoring and Analytical Control of the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environmental Protection, presented a full-scale project’s concept on POPs monitoring in the environment. Also, public expert Yevgeni Lobanov made a presentation on the main types of NGO involvement in the implementation of the full-scale POPs project in Belarus.
At the workshop, the participants, ministerial officials, representatives of the World Bank, and the companies owning PCB-contaminated equipment openly discussed methods of efficient co-operation among stakeholders within the activities addressing the POPs problem in Belarus.
The workshop participants made their comments and recommendations on how to improve the full-scale project concept, and expressed the willingness of their ministries and agencies to be engaged in full-scale project activities. On the whole, the participants supported the concept of the full-scale project, and commended the work done by the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environmental Protection, the World Bank, the Project Management Unit, and other stakeholders, within the framework of the GEF Enabling Activities Project.
More information on this project you may find at the Project GEF TF053865 website.
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