Regional Work
In addition to our project work within individual countries, CPSP also supports regional action on highly toxic pesticides. We work closely with relevant UN agencies, particularly the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).
Supporting regional groupings of regulators
CPSP is working with regional groupings of national pesticide regulators. This work aims to strengthen regional capacity and collaboration on identification, reporting, regulation, replacement and monitoring of highly hazardous pesticides (HHPs).
We have established collaboration arrangements with five regional pesticide regulatory bodies:
- Asia & Pacific Plant Protection Commission (APPPC)
- Coordinating Group of Pesticide Control Boards of the Caribbean (CGPC)
- East African Community (EAC)
- West African Pesticides Registration Committee (WAPRC)
- Southern African Pesticide Regulators Forum (SAPReF)
Each of these regional bodies is now developing a strategy on HHPs that CPSP will support to develop and implement.
Evaluating African surveillance systems
The full burden of pesticide suicides in African countries remains poorly documented. One reason for this is the lack of capacity to collect data due to immature surveillance systems.
It is essential to know the number of cases to guide effective pesticide suicide prevention measures.
We are working with the University of Cape Town on a study to investigate how pesticide suicide deaths in Africa are recorded. This will explore the various surveillance systems in place, as well as highlighting key limitations and data collection barriers.
Pesticide suicide prevention in the Americas
We have formed a collaborative partnership with the WHO, FAO and Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) to work on pesticide suicide prevention across the Americas region.
The primary objective of this collaboration is to reduce deaths caused by intentional ingestion of acutely toxic HHPs in priority countries in the region – identified in consultation with PAHO.
We will support these priority countries to identify HHPs of national concern and move away from continued reliance on them.
