The Electronic Declarations tool for National Authorities (EDNA) has been developed in-house by the Technical Secretariat and is freely available for use by all States Parties for the creation of declarations required under Article VI. The Technical Secretariat will ensure that EDNA is kept current and updated to reflect applicable guidelines and any decisions made on the implementation of Article VI declaration requirements. To facilitate the use of EDNA, the Technical Secretariat will provide support and training to States Parties. For more information, read the Note by the Technical Secretariat S/714/2008 “Electronic Declaration Software for National Authorities”, dated 15 October 2008.

The first version of EDNA, version 1.0, covers the declaration of: Aggregate National Data (AND), and Other Chemical production facilities (OCPF). The software supports the creation of declarations in electronic format for uploading to the Verification Information System (VIS). Once created, the electronic declaration should be transmitted to the Secretariat on a CD-ROM by an authorised representative from the State Party. The software also supports the creation of declarations in hard copy according to the standard forms contained within the Declarations Handbook.

EDNA allows for the import and export of electronic Article VI declarations and contains a database for handling declaration data as well as additional information not submitted as part of the declaration. The electronic declaration can be created through guide data entry or modification of an existing electronic declaration. To facilitate the declaration of chemicals included in Aggregate National Data, the electronic Chemicals Database developed by the Secretariat has been integrated into EDNA.

An important feature of EDNA is the ability to validate the e-declaration file before transmission to the Secretariat. This ensures that the file is correctly formatted to be uploaded to the VIS and provides guidance to the correction of logical errors in the data that may require future clarification. This validation tool may also be used for electronic declaration files in the correct format that have been created by other programs, e.g. software already existing in the National Authority. In addition, EDNA contains a tool for the conversion between XML and CTFS file formats

EDNA is currently available in Arabic, English, French, Russian and Spanish. To facilitate the use of EDNA, a comprehensive User Guide has been developed. This guide is currently only available in English but will soon be translated into Arabic, French, Russian and Spanish.