Dakar, Senegal — The World Bank and the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) have signed an agreement that will strengthen their collaboration on the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs), which was finalised last December and will be signed and adopted on 22-23 May.

According to a press release, the agreement was signed between UNEP Executive Director Klaus Toepfer and World Bank Vice President for Environment Ian Johnson.

The new memorandum of understanding focuses on activities for jointly assisting countries in developing National Implementation Plans for the Convention, the statement said.

It said that the two partners will also work together to help governments build national capacity for implementing the Convention's various provisions.

They will provide assistance for developing national POPs inventories and monitoring programmes, and they will support activities for eliminating or restricting the production and accidental release of POPs, it added.

"This represents a winning partnership in the war on persistent organic pollutants," said Toepfer.

"The Word Bank has an outstanding presence in countries around the world which enables it to deliver support effectively to governments, and it has a long-proven track record in managing projects.

"UNEP brings extensive technical expertise on POPs and the Stockholm Convention and has supported countries around the world with over 50 scientific and policy workshops on POPs in the last four years," he added.

"We in the Bank see this partnership with UNEP as a strategic one which will strengthen both of our agencies' effectiveness in assisting our client countries," said Johnson.

UNEP and the World Bank will also be collaborating on POPs through the Global Environment Facility, which will be the Convention's interim financial mechanism.

UNEP and the World Bank administer the GEF, together with the UN Development Programme, so today's MOU will build upon and strengthen this GEF partnership.

The Stockholm Convention sets out control measures covering the production, import, export, disposal, and use of POPs. Governments are to promote the best available technologies and practices for replacing existing POPs while preventing the development of new POPs.

They will draw up national legislation and develop action plans for carrying out their commitments.

The control measures will apply to an initial list of 12 chemicals. The 12 include eight pesticides (aldrin, chlordane, DDT, dieldrin, endrin, heptachlor, mirex, and toxaphene), two industrial chemicals (PCBs and hexachlorobenzene, which is also a pesticide), and two unwanted by-products of combustion and industrial processes (dioxins and furans).