As Co-Chairs of the Governing Board of the Specific International Programme of the Minamata Convention on Mercury, we are very pleased to inform you that on Wednesday, 3 October 2018, the Board approved five projects in the First Round of the Programme amounting to one million United States dollars.
The successful projects were submitted by Argentina, Armenia, Benin, Iran and Lesotho. On behalf of the Board, we would like to congratulate these applicants.
We noted the high interest in the Specific International Programme, and would like to commend all the applicants, whether successful or not in the First Round, for having prepared high quality submissions despite the short time frames.
In total 19 applications, from 18 Parties, were received by the deadline. The Board was particularly heartened that applications were received from all regions, including from least developed countries and from small island developing states.
The Board would also like to sincerely thank Austria, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United States for their contributions to the First Round of the Specific International Programme.
The Board was unfortunately not in a position to satisfy all requests for funding in this round. Given the high interest shown we hope to be in a position to launch the next round soon and in this regard would like to encourage those in a position to do so to contribute to a robust next round of the Programme.
The Board will present its full report to the Conference of the Parties at its second meeting.
On behalf of the Board we would also like to thank the Government of Norway for the gracious invitation to convene this meeting in Oslo.
Sam Adu-Kumi (Ghana) and Reggie Hernaus (The Netherlands)
Co-Chairs of the Governing Board of the Specific International Programme
Oslo, 3 October 2018
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