Picture of Participants at the Training Course for Representatives of National Authorities of States Parties involved in Fulfilling Article VI Obligations held in the Netherlands from 7 – 11 March 2016.
The Technical Secretariat of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) and the National Authority of the Kingdom of The Netherlands jointly organised the Training Course for Representatives of National Authorities of States Parties Involved in Fulfilling Article VI Obligations under the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC).
The training course was conducted on 7 – 11 March 2016 at the OPCW Headquarters with simultaneous interpretation into the Spanish language. It addressed two important Article VI obligations, namely, preparation and submission of Article VI annual declarations as well as receiving the OPCW inspections. Forty one national experts of 36 States Parties* from Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe and GRULAC participated in this event, including Angola (a new State Party) that attended such a course for the first time.
The training course focused on different aspects of the Article VI verification regime of the Convention, such as the chemicals to be monitored under the Convention, tools to assist in the identification of scheduled chemicals and preparation of declarations, identification of declarable chemical industry activities as well as all aspects of organising the inspection on a plant site. The programme of the course consisted of presentations and hands-on, practical exercises which created the necessary balance between the theoretical and practical aspects of the course.
The course also included a demonstration of the Electronic Declarations for National Authorities software and Secure Information Exchange platform. As a part of the programme, the training course included role play by the participants on conducting a mock inspection. Through coordination with the Dutch National Authority this year’s course mock inspection was conducted in two Dutch chemical plant sites, namely Huntsman B.V. and Croda B.V.
The course represents an important part of IPB’s core capacity building programme to enhance the efforts of the National Authorities to comply more effectively with the provisions of Article VI of the Convention. The course helped to enhance participants’ knowledge and skills in these two important aspects, which are useful for effective national implementation.
* Algeria, Angola, Argentina, Armenia, Bangladesh, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brazil, Bulgaria, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cote D’Ivoire, Cuba, Czech Republic, Dominica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Ethiopia, Guatemala, India, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Nepal, Niger, Peru, Philippines, Singapore, Sudan, Suriname, Thailand, Venezuela and Zimbabwe.