Continued Institutional Strengthening Support for CEITs to meet the obligations of the Montreal Protocol

The project aims at further institutional strengthening and capacity building in support of the implementation of the Montreal Protocol in Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. The project responds in particular to concerns raised by the Implementation Committee regarding the difficulties that these countries have to keep to their reporting obligations after the end of the initial GEF support for Institutional Strengthening, and to residual consumption of CFCs in some of the participating countries. The project will work through the National Ozone Units (NOUs), but also reach out to non-governmental stakeholders. As such this project seeks to continue the support to the NOUs, specifically providing the financial assistance for such elements as information dissemination; organisation of training and awareness-raising exercises for stakeholders which consume ODS; organisation of training and awareness-raising exercises for cooperating government officers (particularly within Customs & Excise); exploration of ODS disposal/destruction mechanisms at the national and regional level; and local and regional meetings to combat illegal trade and stockpiling of ODS. Finally, the project will facilitate the region-wide exchange of experiences through allowing the participation of these countries to the networking activities of the Art. 5 countries funded by the MLF, and managed by UNEP as well.