Tanzania Multi Stakeholder Map - WebNG

In recent decades, the risks posed by POPs have become of increasing
concern in
many countries, resulting in actions to protect human health and the
environment being taken at the national, regional and international levels.
1.3 The Stockholm Convention on POPs
Chemical contamination of the environment shows no respect for territorial
borders and therefore countries on their own, cannot respond effectively.
In 1992, the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development
in Rio de Janeiro agreed to address the problem of POPs. In May 1995
the Governing Council of the United Nations Environment Programme
(UNEP) requested in its decision 18/32 that an international assessment
process be undertaken of an initial list of 12 POPs (Aldrin, Chlordane,
DDT, Dieldrin, Polychlorinated para Dibenzodioxins - PCDD, Endrin,
Polychlorinated Dibenzofurans - PCDF Hexachlorobenzene - HCB,
Heptachlor, Mirex, Polychlorinated Biphenyls PCBs and Toxaphene) and
that the Intergovernmental Forum on Chemical Safety (IFCS) develop
recommendations on international action for consideration by the UNEP
Governing Council and World Health Assembly no later than in 1997.
In June 1996, the IFCS concluded that available information was sufficient
to demonstrate the need for international action on the 12 POPs and that
international action, including a global legally binding instrument, is
required to reduce risks to human health and the environment arising from
the release of the 12 POPs. The IFCS provided recommendations to
UNEP that served as a basis for the mandate to begin negotiations of a
global POPs Convention.
In February 1997, the UNEP Governing Council in its Decision 19/13C
invited UNEP to prepare for and convene an Intergovernmental
Negotiating Committee (INC), with a mandate to prepare an international
legally binding instrument for initially the 12 POPs and requested that the
INC establish an expert group to develop criteria and a procedure for
identifying additional POPs as candidates for future international action.
The decision also included a number of immediate actions to address
POPs issue. In June 1998, an Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee
(INC) started to prepare for an international legally binding instrument for
implementing international action on POPs. Five negotiation meetings
took place and came to an end in December 2000. On May 23, 2001 a
global, legally binding instrument called the “Stockholm Convention on
Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs)” was adopted in Stockholm Sweden.
Ninety two (92) Governments and European Union adopted the
Convention, Tanzania included.
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