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Africa CBRN

Africa CBRN

​​EU CBRN CoE Project 35. Managing Hazardous Chemical, Biological, Radioactive and Nuclear Waste in the African Atlantic Façade (AAF) Region and in Tunisia.

  • Dates​: January 20​14 – December 2017
  • Participating Countries: African Atlantic Façade (AAF) Region (Ivory Coast, Gabon, Liberia, Mauritania, Morocco, Senegal, and Togo) and Tunisia.
  • Developers: FIIAPP (International and Latin American Foundation for Public Administration and Policies, in Spain), in cooperation with UNE (Spain), and GRS (Germany) ​​
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Presentation of the CBRN UNE International Cooperation project
Presentation

Training in the CBRN UNE International Cooperation project
Training

Group for the CBRN UNE International Cooperation project
Group

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The Project EU CBRN CoE 35 is part of the EU programme on Centres of Excellence in the field of NBQR (nuclear, biological, chemical and radioactive) disaster prevention, preparation and response. In the field of the civil defence, all the countries of this region have strengthened the cooperation among themselves and have shown to be eager to exchange best practices on hazardous waste management with the EU. The main aim of this project is to improve (or to initiate) best practices for managing hazardous chemical and biological products.

Download the EU CBRN CoE 35 booklet here.

After a first phase identifying the specific needs, each country considered the aspects related to sampling, detection, measurement, protection, decontamination, mitigation, transportation, containment, recovery of land and waste disposal. All the while they maintained a coherent regional approach. This included drawing up complete standard procedures and technological solutions for chemical and biological waste. The works included technical and regulatory inventories, training for building skills, workshops and a practical programme on large-scale chemical and biological waste sampling and measurement (for competent laboratories and technicians), in which many laboratories took part in international inter-comparison testing schemes to measure the performance reached.

Coordination with national, regional and international activities that are already in place or ongoing has been a key factor for success that has prevented duplicities and has increased local involvement and the sustainability of this project.

The project EU CBRN CoE 35 has posed a challenge from a coordination and logistics point of view (simultaneous tasks carried out in 8 countries) as well as due to the technical aspect (training given in varying sectors: industrial facilities, hospitals, waste managers, local administrations, etc.). Despite this, all the involved organisations managed to achieve clearly satisfactory results.

The experience and the knowledge of UNE in all matters relating to training and quality and environmental management systems have enabled more than 100 training activities intended to promote the application of testing laboratory management systems based on the ISO/IEC standard 17025:2005 and raising awareness on best practices in hazardous waste management to be carried out highly successfully in the project by UNE's experts. To do so, UNE has had personnel located in the different African countries participating in the project during the equivalent of more than 750 working days.

Click here for more information.​​

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Testimonies

Appointment with participant Souad El HAJJAJI

​​​​​​​​Professor in the Science Faculty. Mohammed V-Rabat University. Morocco

Souad El HAJJAJI

The problems arising from hazardous chemical and biological waste are profoundly important in Morocco due to the vast amount of them. This project will enable us to improve the standards of our laboratories and to develop a national strategy to raise awareness on correct waste management.

Appointment with participant Doctor Hubert BINGA.

​​Director of the National Pollution Prevention Centre. Gabon

Doctor Hubert BINGA.

​Project 35 has given us the opportunity to notably improve our abilities in hazardous waste management techniques, which us will enable us to correct weaknesses in our national legislation in this regard.​​

Appointment with participant Mrs Fagamou Sy DIOP

​​Technical adviser on waste management for the Environment Ministry. Senegal.

Mrs Fagamou Sy DIOP

​The training received will enable us to develop a national agenda to raise awareness on the chemical and biological risks in various sectors of society related to the management of this waste. It was a problem for us that the current best practices in this area were until now, unknown to us.