Four African Countries act on GHS Implementation

The International Council of Chemical Associations (ICCA) has announced a new four-year pilot project between four African countries. These four African countries, Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana, Kenya, and Nigeria collaborated to start a project that will improve their chemicals management and more specifically, improve their national implementation of the Globally Harmonized System of Classification and Labelling of Chemicals (GHS).

Launched on April 4, 2022, this project is a collaboration between the European Union, the Strategic Approach to International Chemicals Management (SAICM), the International Council of Chemical Associations (ICCA), UN Environment Programme (UNEP), the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA), and the UN Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR), who will all work as partners with each concerned country’s government.

The implementation of GHS is a long process that needs several years to be put in place and the next four years will be used for this pilot project. According to Marco Mensink, the Council Secretary of ICCA, the pilot project will test and evaluate the benefits of a long-term approach in supporting countries through the implementation and adoption process.

The key activities of the project include setting the legislation for GHS implementation, required training and guidance as well as the needed tools for implementation. In Africa, only three countries have implemented GHS so far and these countries are Mauritius, South Africa, and Zambia.

Also, Rwanda recently started the process to implement GHS. A notification of the draft standard was sent to WTO and the feedback was opened till March 17, 2022. The draft first edition can be viewed here.