International POPs Elimination Network

Community Monitoring Working Group

WHO WE ARE

International POPs Elimination Network

The International POPs Elimination Network (IPEN) is a global network of public interest non-governmental organisations united in support of a common POPs Elimination Platform (1) and the implementation of the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants. The mission of IPEN and its participating organisations is to work for the global elimination of persistent organic pollutants, in a socially equitable framework.

The IPEN Platform is accompanied by a Background Statement, which summarises the key findings about POPs' impacts on the environment and human health, and outlines the core environmental principles.


The History of IPEN

Founded in early 1998, IPEN was formally launched with a public forum at the first session of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC1) for a POPs Convention in Montreal in June 1998. Throughout the course of the negotiations, the network grew to include more than 300 public health, environmental, consumer, and other non-governmental organizations in 70 countries. The network mobilised grassroots support for a global treaty and sourced from philanthropic organisations, the resources to create a forum for NGOs and activists from around the world to participate in the United Nations' negotiation process.

IPEN established regional and national Focal Points in Africa, Latin America, Asia-Pacific (including Australia), Eastern and Western Europe, Japan, India and Pakistan. The Focal Points help coordinate POPs activities and communicate with the IPEN participating organisations in their regions, reporting to IPEN on regional needs, activities, and perspectives.

As part of it's international networking, IPEN coordinated NGO conferences and workshops at each of the five negotiating sessions in Montreal (June 1998), Nairobi (January 1999), Geneva (September 1999), Bonn (March 2000), Johannesburg (December 2000) and at the Stockholm Diplomatic Conference (May 2001).

UNEP welcomed the involvement of NGOs in the POPs negotiations and recognised their important role: "(E)ngaging stakeholders as partners is important for many reasons. Firstly, external stakeholders have many different perspectives to be taken into account in order to foster long-term, broad-based support for UNEP's work. Secondly, engaging a wide range of stakeholders in addressing environmental issues expands the reach and impact of strategies far beyond the capability of UNEP's own limited financial and human resources. Thirdly, active involvement of stakeholders may compensate for UNEP's limited operational presence at the national level, where many environmental problems need to be addressed." (2)

In response to the demand on IPEN participating organisations, IPEN held a series of workshops to address the capacity-building and technical information needs.

IPEN also launched working groups on specific issues, Dioxins and PCBs, DDT and Pesticides and Community Monitoring and Body Burden

• to work with communities and public interest groups engaged in IPEN and share information on community chemical monitoring and body burden testing;
• to establish community monitoring techniques as advocacy tools for community empowerment and implementation of the Stockholm Convention;
• to develop the concepts of community monitoring, especially body burden monitoring, as a campaign tool to identify trends in chemicals exposure; and to
• utilise data to identify trends regarding chemicals exposures in support of success of current regulation, or provide evidence for the need for new regulation to prevent chemical trespass.