POPs - Persistent Organic Pollutants

POPs are highly stable compounds that circulate globally through a repeated process of evaporation and deposit, and are transported through the atmosphere and the oceans to regions far away from their original source. They accumulate in the tissue of living organisms, which absorb POPs through food, water, and air. The effects of POPs exposure include birth defects, cancers, and dysfunctional immune and reproductive systems. POPs are also a threat to biodiversity, and even have the potential to cause disruption at the ecosystem level.

SGP and POPs

The Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) named the GEF as the interim financial mechanism after it was adopted in May 2001. With the convention going into force, the GEF Assembly approved the addition of POPs as a new focal area in October 2002. SGP as a corporate programme of the GEF, implemented by UNDP on behalf of all GEF Implementing Agencies and executed by UNOPS, has since then started to support projects on POPs around the world at an increasing rate. GEF-SGP funds solely Non-governmental Organizations (NGOs) and Community Based Organizations (CBOs) in line with the important recognition given in the Stockholm Convention to NGOs as being effective in reducing and eliminating POPs.

The SGP Strategy on Reducing and Eliminating POPs, guides Country Programmes and multi-country Strategic Projects on the development and implementation of projects to serve more communities, and have a larger global environmental impact. National Implementation Plans for the Stockholm Convention (NIPs) will form the basis for future country-level GEF support on POPs. Therefore, based on the convention GEF-SGP country priorities emerge from the NIPs. Since NIPs are going to be the framework for a country to develop and implement, in a systematic and participatory way, priority policy, and regulatory reform, capacity building, and investment programs GEF SGP Country Programmes, their partners and grantees (especially women and children health groups) try to become part of the discussions, development, and implementation surrounding the NIPs.

SGP Persistent Organic Pollutants projects are implemented according to the following GEF operational programmes.
  • OP15 - Operational Program on Sustainable Land Management
Country Eligibility

SGP Country Programmes can support projects in the POPs reduction and elimination focal area only if the country has ratified the Stockholm Convention. As of March 2005, the following SGP countries are eligible for POPs projects:

Albania, Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Belarus, Bolivia, Botswana, Brazil, Burkina Faso, Chile, Cфte d'Ivoire, Dominica, Ecuador, Egypt, Ethiopia, Fiji, Ghana, Jordan, Kenya, Lebanon, Mali, Marshall Islands, Mauritius, Mexico, Mongolia, Morocco, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, Romania, Rwanda, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Samoa, Senegal, South Africa, Thailand, The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Trinidad and Tobago, Tunisia, Uganda, United Republic of Tanzania, Viet Nam and Yemen.

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