CAPACITY BUILDING FOR GHS IMPLEMENTATION: the perspective of Civil Society Contact : Dr Olga Speranskaya Co-Chair, IPEN www.ipen.org olga@ipen.org

Involvement of civil society and NGOs 2000 Bahia Declaration on Chemical Safety called on all governments to: - increase access to information in chemical safety - to recognize the community's right-to-know - their right to participate meaningfully in decisions

CHALLENGES AND CAPACITY CONSTRAINTS OF PUBLIC INTEREST ORGANIZATIONS Successful implementation of GHS will require greater public awareness information available to civil society is limited and difficult to access limited and incomplete public awareness and understanding about the severe health and environmental harm caused by chemicals commercial confidentiality

Ongoing NGO GHS Activities participating in national GHS implementation initiatives (e.g., comprehensibility testing training and piloting), Participating in national and international meetings   building capacity amongst themselves (e.g., the development of the IPEN-GHS Working Group).  

NGO EXPECTATIONS ON GHS IMPLEMENTATION national GHS implementation by all developing countries and countries with economies in transition identification and mitigation of flaws within the GHS challenges hampering implementation.

NGO Expectations from Industries provide enabling environment for GHS implementation in line with SAICM objectives : minimizing risks to human health and the environment throughout the life cycle of chemicals; disseminating information about chemicals by making full use of GHS; and promoting implementation of GHS definitions and criteria.

NGO Expectations from Industries extended producer responsibility, right to know, substitution precautionary principles while working towards hazard elimination 

NGO Expectations from governments countries need to have an infrastructure for sound chemicals management in place including: appropriate, enforced, legislation that regulates chemicals and wastes. information dissemination and communication to farmers

SIGNIFICANCE OF NGOs PARTICIPATION IN GHS IMPLEMENTATION (1) Education campaigns on chemical hazards and alternatives to pesticides (2) Policy advocacy for GHS implementation, uphold farmers’ right to information (3) Monitoring of community exposure to chemicals and GHS compliance (4) Networking among NGOs to strengthen the risk elimination efforts and ensure efficient and wide dissemination of information on chemical hazards and safer alternatives (5) Attending national GHS implementation meetings (6) Provide relevant information to competent authorities (7) Participate in comprehensibility testing (8) Review GHS labels and SDSs (9) Participate in national awareness raising campaigns  

Thank you