• Water quality

Water quality

This manual presents the key issues associated with obsolete pesticides and the Africa Stockpiles Programme (ASP). It provides information and resources to help non-governmental organisations (NGOs) play their part in the successful implementation of national ASP projects. The ASP objective is to clean up and safely dispose of all obsolete pesticide stocks from Africa and establish preventive measures to avoid future accumulation.

Even though large amounts of pesticides are used in developed countries, the damage they do is far greater in poorer nations. This may be attributed to the lack of basic awareness of the inherent dangers of pesticides use, the lack of adequate maintenance, storage facilities, and proper disposal methods. In many cases, obsolete pesticides are stored under conditions that do not meet basic standards for safe and responsible storage of such hazardous materials, and pose a significant risk of leaking. This can result in human and environmental exposure to potentially unidentified chemical waste. 

Some of the key points raised include the following:

• to be successful, obsolete pesticides projects in the field require action on a number of different levels, from different stakeholders. NGOs should be part of governance structures of the ASP projects helping to ensure that projects are transparently managed and providing a non-government perspective 
  
• NGOs should form a national NGO network. This can range from a formally constituted network of organisations, to an informal group of organisations that just stays in touch and exchanges information on obsolete pesticides 
  
• a number of specific activities and initiatives that NGOs may be able to conduct that will be relevant to the ASP. These include Communications and awareness raising, capacity building, lobbying, case studies and research.
  

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