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“Development Of Tools to Counter illegal Management and trade of Waste (DOT.COM Waste) Project”

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December 23, 2015

Ports Environmental Network-Africa (PENAf), in a project consortium led by the United Nations University (Germany), has been successful with an European Commission project “Development Of Tools to Counter illegal Management and trade of Waste (DOT.COM Waste) Project”.

The 24-month project, commencing January 1, 2016, seeks to increase the capabilities of law enforcement agencies, customs, port authorities, environmental agencies and prosecutors to fight cross-border crimes more cost-effectively. It aims at increasing stakeholders’ understanding of current waste crime trends and to identify and share good practices for detecting, investigating and prosecuting waste crime activities. Knowledge gained will be translated into training materials and tools to help stakeholders integrate good practices into their day-to-day activities.

To achieve these objectives, the project will carry out a set of research and development, training and dissemination activities. Beneficiaries will be stakeholders involved in the fight against waste crime – Police, Customs, Prosecutors, Port Authorities, and Environmental Agencies - along the EU-China and EU-West Africa routes. Target countries are Ghana, Nigeria, China, and the EU. In the long term, the general public and stakeholder groups in other countries will also be reached.

The consortium for the project is made up of partnering organisations across the EU, Africa and China. It includes, Compliance and Risk (Ireland), Cross-border Research Association (Switzerland), Tecoms (Italy), Basel Convention Regional Centre for West Africa (Nigeria), and Basel Convention Regional Centre for Asia and Pacific (China), with the Public Prosecutor Office of Bari - Procura Bari (Italy) as a project associate.

Ports Environmental Network-Africa’s (PENAf), a non-profit organisation with interest in environmental health of African ports and founded by Harry Barnes-Dabban, PhD candidate within the ENP Group, will be the regional coordinator of the project in Ghana, responsible for the promotion of the training sessions and the training toolkit developed, and will support the implementation of the international operation.