THIRD PMC MEETING OF THE REGIONAL PROJECT FOR PROMOTION OF STRATEGIES TO REDUCE UNINTENTIONAL PRODUCTION OF POPS IN THE RED SEA AND GULF OF ADEN COASTAL ZONE
Cairo – Suez Egypt March 30th – 31st 2010

The Third PMC Meeting of the joint PERSGA UNIDO managed project took place in Cairo and Suez Egypt over the two days March 30th and 31st 2010. The meeting was inaugurated by Her Excellency Ms. Dr. Mawaheb Abu El Azm, Chief Executive of the Egyptian Environmental Affairs Agency “EEAA”. The Project’s Coordinator Dr. Mohammed Badran addressed the meeting on behalf of His Excellency Dr. Ziad Abu Ghararah PERSGA Secretary General. Dr. Badran thanked the Egyptian Environmental Affairs Agency for hosting the meeting. He also thanked UNIDO and GEF for supporting the project and welcomed the PMC members in Cairo. He highlighted that concurrently with the meeting country nominees were being trained on collecting and processing samples for PCDD/Fs analysis at the QCAP Laboratory in Cairo, emphasising the importance of sharing experience and benefiting from available expertise in the region.

Dr. Saboj Fejes, UNIDO consultant welcomed the participants and highlighted the importance of the laboratory capacity in the region, the necessity for accurate inventories, and stressed the UP-POPs related obligations of the SC, particularly the one addressing continuous release reduction of the Annex C POPs.

Her Excellency Ms. Dr. Mawaheb Abu El Azm, Chief Executive of the Egyptian Environmental Affairs Agency “EEAA” closed the opening ceremony and officially opened the Project’s 3rd PMC Meeting welcoming the PMC members in Cairo Egypt and emphasizing the full support of Egypt to the project. Her Excellency also expressed the willingness of Egypt to provide all possible technical assistance to partner countries through the project. Before closing Her Excellency thanked PERSGA and UNIDO for implementing the project and emphasised the need for wise management of chemicals and chemical residues to secure safe and healthy environments for better life quality to the present and coming generations.
 
The meeting then continued with a session of technical presentations that was chaired by Ms. Dr. Fatma Abu Shouk, Head of Environmental Management Sector at EEAA. In the afternoon the PMC members discussed the progress and technical matters of the project.

On the second day a site visit was organised to the Lafarge Cement Plant to demonstrate stack emission sampling for the trainees and for the PMC members. This activity was the last event of the training workshop for sampling and analysis training. The PMC members got introduced to the factory as a potential demonstration site in Egypt; and joined the trainees in actual sampling exercise of stack emission.   

The PMC members participated in the closing ceremony congratulated the participants for the successful training they have received and wished them further success in their upcoming missions of collecting samples for the project and for other activities in their countries.