Guidance for Developing a National Implementation Plan for the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants

Scope

The document aims at providing guidance to countries and assists them in the process of developing, reviewing and updating their NIPs. The Convention makes it clear that NIPs should be developed to address the specific needs of each Party. This document therefore is not intended to be prescriptive and should be used, in whole or in part, to contribute to the successful development of a NIP.  This latest edition complements the earlier editions by addressing the review and updating of a NIP and, in particular, taking into account the need to do so due to changes in the obligations arising from amendments to the Convention in May 2009, April 2011, April 2013 and May 2015 to include 14 new chemicals in its Annexes A, B, and C. It also strengthens linkages with the Basel Convention and broader national chemicals management efforts. The guidance will be further revised as needed to take account of issues arising during its use in the field. 

To have a comprehensive overview, this guidance document should also be used as a companion to the whole set of NIP guidance documents. 

Main target audience

National Stockholm Convention focal points, the project coordination unit implementing the NIP review and update project and the different task teams responsible for conducting inventories and developing action plans.

Latest version of the Guidance (January 2017)

Decision SC-7/10 requested parties and others to provide comments to the Secretariat based on their experience in using the most up-to-date versions of guidance documents to assist parties in developing, reviewing and updating their national implementation plans, as listed in part A of the annex to that decision, on how to improve their usefulness, and requests the Secretariat, subject to the availability of resources, to update the guidance documents listed in part A of the annex, as appropriate. The Secretariat has revised the draft guidance (March 2014 version) based on the comments received. The revised January 2017 version of the draft Guidance for Developing National Implementation Plan for the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants is given below.


Review of the Guidance

The process for review of the guidance has been initiated by decision SC-6/12 on the guidance for Developing a National Implementation Plan for the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants (updated in 2012 to include the POPs listed in 2009 and 2011). The request for information pursuant to decision SC-6/12 can be accessed here. The comments received in response on the draft guidance are available here. The draft revised guidance according to the comments received as of 31 March 2014 is available below in English only. The document is posted as a clean version, and a track changes version can be obtained on request from the Secretariat. Following the same process COP 7 by its decision SC-7/10, invited further comments to the draft guidance, based on their experience of using it, to be submitted to the Secretariat by prior to 31 March 2016. The compiled list of comments received with the responses on this guidance is available below. 

Comments received (as of 31 March 2016)

Compiled list of comments and responses on the guidance for Developing a National Implementation Plan for the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants (version March 2014)
List of comments and responses on the guidance for Developing a National Implementation Plan for the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants (version 2012)

Previous versions of the Guidance

Version (March 2014)

Version (July 2012)

 
Other relevant documents
Step-by-step companion guide to the review and updating of the National Implementation Plans (2011)

Supporting documents