Annual Report 2005 - CropLife Africa Middle East

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CropLife Africa Middle EastAnnual Report 2005The 2005 Annual Report has been prepared by the Regional Coordinator with inputs fromArea Coordinators and the Training Consultant and edited by the President of the Organization.IntroductionThis third Annual Report of CropLife Africa Middle Eastcovers the period of the financial year from 1 st January to31 st December 2005. The General Assembly of the organizationheld its annual meeting on June 1 st in Brussels. In additionto the statutory decisions and approvals, the GeneralAssembly also elected Mr. Peter van den Hoek, representingBASF in the Assembly as an additional director of theExecutive Committee by a unanimous vote.The Executive Committee held three meetings in 2005. Thefirst meeting in Rome in February 2005 was combined witha visit and discussions at the FAO. The June meeting wascombined with the AGM and the Annual Conference ofCropLife International in Brussels and the Septembermeeting followed the hub meeting for North Africa MiddleEast in Casablanca. These meetings focused on the executionof hub action plans and the periodical review andmonitoring of budget performance.Three annual hub meetings were also convened during theyear, April in Cotonou, June in Lusaka and September inCasablanca with the objective to provide guidance andcoaching to national association activities together with supportof regional regulatory initiatives.All activities of CropLife Africa Middle East during 2005 werecarried out in line with the priorities set by the association andthe action plans approved by the Executive Committee. Thisreport elaborates on the various areas of activity.Regulatory HarmonizationNorth Africa Middle East• The regulatory harmonization initiative, co-driven by Crop-Life Africa Middle East and the Arab Organization forAgricultural Development (AOAD) continued to expandthe harmonization of regulatory measures amongst countriesof the sub-region.• The approved harmonized application form has beenaccepted and implemented in 16 out of the 18 membercountries with the exception of Qatar and Oman who arestill pending issuance of national legislation on theregistration of pesticides.• A fallback in implementing the harmonized form in Libya isbeing addressed through the AOAD. In Egypt, the “metoo”registration system which was introduced in 2003has been cancelled by the new government.• In Morocco, implementation of the harmonized form led toan increase in quality of submissions and a reduction in thenumber of requests for registrations. In 2005 the numberof rejections was 17% compared to 60% in 2003.• Iraq has been reinstated as a member of the regulatoryinitiative. Two delegates of the Iraqi regulatory authorityattended the annual regulatory meeting in Casablanca inSeptember 2005 and accepted to introduce the harmonizedform and documents in their country.• Content and format of a harmonized label proposal hasbeen accepted by member countries.• All member countries accepted the issuing of a registrationcertificate for each product. Tunisia would issue certificatesonly upon request. The content and format of aproposed registration certificate has been accepted withcertain freedom for modifications in the case of Jordan.• AOAD agreed to establish a data base on pesticides usesto trigger exchange of field data.West and Central Africa• The terms of reference for the regional regulatory harmonizationon crop protection products in West Africa havebeen approved and the study is underway for a workableregional framework. Both ECOWAS and WEAMU are fullyinvolved and are leading the process. A regional workshopwill be organised by mid-2006 to validate the harmonizationframework for the sub-region.• The initiative for a Central Africa Phytosanitary Committee(CPAC) has been signed by the Ministers in charge ofAgriculture in the individual CEMAC countries. The initiativehas been submitted to the Council of Ministers of CE-MAC for adoption prior to implementation.• Liaison at country level was undertaken with the registrationauthorities through workshops and seminars topromote the need for effective application of regulations.These activities were conducted in Ghana, Mali andBurkina Faso. The impact of fraud and counterfeitproducts on the economy were stressed; authorities werethus requested to implement corrective measures tocombat these practices, and to support effectivemanagement of CPPS in the different countries.East and Southern AfricaThe 2005 SEARCH meeting in Lusaka focused on developinga guideline on “Mutual Data Acceptance”. Implementationof this across the fourteen countries of SEARCH provedto be extremely difficult leading to the direction of “countrygroupings” which will be developed further during 2006.Additional achievements arising from the Lusaka meetingwere:• The Guideline for the Registration of Generic Productswas accepted as the minimum requirement for thegranting of a generic product registration.• The Guidelines for the Repacking and Small Pack Requirementswas accepted and will be implemented.
Regional CoordinatorArea CoordinatorArea CoordinatorSafe Use Trainerand Area Coordinatorfor West and Central Africa:for East and South Africa:CropLife Africa Middle Eastfor North Africa Middle East:Yao Bama OctaveLes HillowitzPeter MillsAli Mohamed Alibased in Abidjan,based in Johannesburg,based in Pietermaritzburg,based in Amman, JordanCôte d’IvoireSouth AfricaSouth Africa• Agreement to identify the major crops within SEARCH or“country groupings” in order to develop harmonized trialprotocols and corresponding MRL’s.CropLife represented the SADC Secretariat at the UNITAR“Global Thematic Workshop on Strengthening Capacities toImplement the Global Harmonized System of Classificationand Labeling of Chemicals (GHS)”.In 2003 CropLife assisted the SADC Secretariat in developinga framework for an “MRL Project” which they thenpresented to the EU for funding. Towards the end of 2005 abudget for the project was approved. We learned that theEU consultant in charge of the project appraisal included inhis findings that CropLife (SEARCH) must be a partner in theproject for this to be a success.Training and StewardshipNorth Africa Middle East• In line with the Executive Committee policy to support localcapacity building on Safe Use/IPM training activities, threemaster trainer courses were organized in Egypt, Sudanand Jordan. In total 41 master trainers were certified.• Financial assistance to national associations was directedstrictly to support stewardship and training activities asdecided by the hub chair and regional coordinator.West and Central Africa• Primarily farmers and retailers were targeted in allcountries. About 5000 farmers benefited from training andstewardship activities conducted by member companiesof national associations of the CropLife network. 400distributors and retailers were trained during sessionsconducted by the national associations.East and Southern Africa• During 2005 the drive towards capacity building continuedwith the focus on “Training of Trainers”. Five suchtrainings were undertaken within the region and for thefirst time a follow-up assessment of trainers was carriedout in a country, in this instance, Ethiopia. For the countriesparticipating in the Africa Stockpiles Program our endeavorwas to include key personnel in the training program.• In the area of “container management” and together withthe Plastics Federation of South Africa the initiative“Plastics on the Farm” was developed. This initiative commencedin the well known agricultural area of the WesternCape and involves the collection of all obsolete plastics onthe farm which are then taken to an accredited recycler.A second initiative is in the development phase and involvesthe production of “ecowood” of which the mainconstituent is obsolete plastics. This project is likely toreceive funding from the EU. In South Africa, the AreaCoordinator will participate in the working group that theDepartment of Agriculture has created for containermanagement.• One of the highlights in 2005 was that a MoU withFANRPAN was signed. The Food, Agriculture and NaturalResources Policy Analysis Network (FANRPAN) is anautonomous stakeholder-driven policy research, analysisand implementation network that was established in1997. FANRPAN is represented in 11 SADC countries.The main objectives of FANRPAN are to promote appropriateagricultural policies in order to reduce poverty, increasefood security and promote sustainable agriculturaldevelopment in the SADC region. Within the projectportfolio of the organization two projects were identifiedin which we saw the opportunity for a partnership. Theseare:• “Contract Farming” as a mechanism for the commercializationof smallholder agriculture in the SADC region.• Addressing agricultural biotechnology policy issues toimprove food security in the SADC region.With the above as background a MoU was signed betweenthe parties which outlines the partnership coveringthe promotion and facilitation of:• “Safe use initiatives”.• Regional harmonization efforts of biosafety regulationsfor the registration and regional commercialization ofgenetically modified organisms (GMO’s).An action plan has been developed which will be rolled outduring 2006.Regional Training Overviewprovided by Peter MillsIn terms of training, the overall objective is the creation of suitablytrained Master Trainers through CropLife Africa MiddleEast's program of capacity building throughout the region, at alllevels and in all sectors. In addition, the secondary objective tothis is the cascading of training down throughout all sectors.We are continuing the project which began in 2002. It started witha Training Needs Analysis (Phase I), where 34 country visits weremade and personnel from the Industry National Associations,NGO's, Training Institutions and other stakeholders were consultedon the requirements. As a result of this TNA, a Pilot Project(Phase II) was introduced in Zimbabwe, where the first Training ofTrainers course was presented. Initially this was a three x five daycourse. After consultations on Industry requirements and budgetarydiscussions, this was eventually compacted into an intensivefive day course, and the first in the on-going program (Phase III)was conducted in Amman, Jordan for Industry trainers comingfrom countries throughout the North Africa Middle East region.
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Annual Report 2005 - CropLife Africa Middle East

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