Interview for Italians

Your office has just completed 30 years of its service to the developing countries. What is the distinct way your programme of OzonAction has contributed to building the image of UNEP as whole and Division of Technology , Industry and Economics in particular?
‘Partnership’ is the key word and the main underpinning approach of the OzonAction Programme. Right from the beginning we decided to build the partnerships with the industry, NGOs and Centres like yours to benefit the developing countries . Many of our information 100 publications, more than 400 training courses have been done in partnership with the expert institutions.
Working with the private sector has been our main forte. Leveraging their expertise to develop the training modules, technology source books, emission reduction guidelines, demonstration projects are the examples.
Networking of the government officers to share the experiences and problem solving techniques has been our strategy to build the capacity and strengthen the institutions of the developing countries. OzonAction Programme has 147 countries in its 10 regional networks . These are human networks that meet every 6 months to discuss the progress and chalk out the future strategies. Many of the developed countries participate in the networks.
The programme has helped more than 100 developing countries to develop for each of them the detail country-strategy to implement the Montreal protocol. Many of these countries had their consumption of ODS in the refrigeration and AC industry. Hence the strategies included the new and laternate refrigeration and AC technologies and also emission reduction plans.
Over last 13 years the Programme has worked relentlessly and has grown from small staff of about 3-4 to now 50 strong staff consisting of policy and technical experts. The Programme has used number of innovative technics-like B2B web portal for the use of recycled ODS- to build the capacity of the developing countries . It won 2005 Stratospheric Ozone Protection award from USA for its leadership and innovation in assisting the developing countries. It is the first and only UN programme to receive such award.