Peru Close to Acquire Funds for Chemical Implementation

Peru has been working on its national chemical policy at least since 2020. In recent months, Peru approached the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) for funding its implementation and enforcing mechanisms.

UNEP has been holding a special Chemical and Waste Management Programme since 2015 to support countries in developing effective frameworks for legislation and regulations addressing chemicals. Overall, the Programme has already funded projects in 57 countries worldwide.

Peru has filed a project request with a 30-month duration and financing of around 250 thousand dollars. In return, the country will disburse 134 thousand dollars, totaling about 384 thousand dollars. Peru is successfully expected to develop, adopt, monitor, and enforce the necessary activities to bring the national chemical legislation into practice with this amount.

In June 2020, the Ministry of Health drafted the sound national chemical management bill which was submitted for public comments until September 2020.  The Regulation and Control of Dangerous Substances proposes to classify and sort substances according to the Globally Harmonized System (GHS) of Classification and Labelling of Chemicals, to create a national register of chemicals, to impose substances to health and environmental assessment, and provide risk management measures for hazardous substances. In addition, Peru intends to implement a certification for those who deals with chemicals (called sanitary authorization), which would have to be renewed every three years.

Another relevant point is the recent Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) discussion to evaluate Peru's membership. In Latin America, OECD plays a crucial role in developing each country's chemical regulations; for example, Chile and Colombia are the only countries in the region that have adopted comprehensive chemical regulations – and have actively participated in the organization since 2010 and 2020, respectively.