$11 Million Allocated to Manage Chemicals in the Environment

A sum of $11 million has been allocated to the Environmental Management Division’s Regional and National Global Harmonized System (GHS) Projects in the 2013/14 Estimates of Expenditure, now before the House of Representatives.

Of the sum, $7 million was given to the Regional GHS project, which seeks to build Jamaica’s capacity to manage chemicals in environmentally sound manner in keeping with the 2020 target of the Johannesburg Plan of Implementation and the Strategic Approach to International Chemicals Management (SAICM).

For this financial year, the money will assist in the organization of the Regional GHS workshop. The project which started in April 2012 is slated to end in September 2013.

The remaining $4 million will go towards the National GHS project. The project seeks to carry out a training and capacity building programme to support the implementation of classification and labelling chemicals.

Targets for this fiscal year include: development of four sector implementation plans; conduct legal analysis and review; develop awareness and education campaign for civil society and industry.

The project, which is being undertaken through the Ministry of Water, Land, Environment and Climate Change, is slated to end in December 2013.

By Chris Patterson, JIS Reporter