UNEP TO HOST REGIONAL MEETINGS ON CLEANER PRODUCTION AND SUSTAINABLE CONSUMPTION, 9 - 11 AUGUST

Press Release
UNEP/74

UNEP TO HOST REGIONAL MEETINGS ON CLEANER PRODUCTION AND SUSTAINABLE CONSUMPTION, 9 - 11 AUGUST

NAIROBI, 7 August (UNEP) -- The first Cleaner Production Roundtable for Africa (CPRA) will be held at the headquarters of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) in Nairobi on 9 and 10 August. The following day, UNEP will host a Workshop on Sustainable Consumption. The Kenyan Minister of Environment and Natural Resources, Francis Nyenze, will open the Roundtable meeting.

Cleaner production is now widely accepted as a successful strategy to improve industrial performance while ensuring protection of the environment. African countries, in their pursuit of economic development, stand to benefit from propagation of cleaner production which promotes optimum utilization of resources.

The Roundtable, organized jointly by UNEP, the Germany-based Carl Duisberg Gesellschaft and the Government of Norway, seeks to provide a platform for information and experience exchange on cleaner production, to provide networking among practitioners and stakeholders, and to develop a common agenda for its promotion in Africa.

Participants at the meeting hope to create an institutional mechanism for ongoing review, assessment and information exchange on cleaner production in Africa; provide a framework for linking it with sustainable consumption; and establish a forum to project Africa in the international arena on the subject.

The United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) and UNEP have already established National Cleaner Production Centres in Kenya, United Republic of Tanzania, Zimbabwe, Tunisia and Morocco. Other Centres are planned for Ethiopia, Mozambique and Nigeria.

The Workshop on Sustainable Consumption, scheduled for 11 August, is aimed at raising awareness, identifying information and training needs, and defining actions needed for an integrated approach for sustainable consumption and cleaner production strategies. The Workshop will follow up on the recommendations of the eighth session of the African Ministerial Conference on the Environment held in Abuja in April this year.

The Nairobi meeting will include representatives of UNIDO and other United Nations agencies, governments and governmental agencies, and the non-governmental community, as well as representatives of similar round tables held in Europe, the Asia-Pacific region and the Mediterranean.

- 2 - Press Release UNEP/74 7 August 2000

The Sixth International High-level Seminar on Cleaner Production will take place in Montreal, Canada, in October.

For more information, please contact: Surya Prakash Chandak, Coordinator, Cleaner Production, UNEP Division for Technology, Industry and Economics, Paris, tel: 33-1-4437-1450; fax: 33-1-4437-1474, e-mail: spchandak@unep.fr, website: uneptie.org; or Yinka Adebayo, UNEP Regional Office for Africa, Nairobi, Kenya; tel: 254-2-62-4284, fax: 62-3928, e-mail: yinka.adebayo@unep.org; website: www.unep.org.

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