On May 1, 2013, the IPCP organized a side event at the Sixth Meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Stockholm Convention in Geneva, Switzerland. The meeting was entitled: “Challenges for POPs monitoring – how can we use international synergies to support the effectiveness evaluation under the Stockholm Convention (SC)?” and was attended by approximately 50 participants.
The Secretariat of the SC was represented by Jim Willis and Abiola Olanipekun, who presented the importance of the Global Monitoring Plan (GMP) as a backbone for the effectiveness evaluation of the Stockholm Convention (SC) and the relevance of science to serve policy needs. The IPCP delegates Martin Scheringer, Ivan Holoubek, and Jacob de Boer presented the role of the IPCP as a bridge between scientists in academia and decision makers. Particular challenges for the working procedures of the SC in light of the huge stockpiles of obsolete POPs still available for (re)emission into the environment were recognized. In an animated discussion and based on an anonymous survey among participants, major limitations for POP monitoring worldwide were identified, including limited resources allocated to POP monitoring in some countries, low priority given by national authorities to the POP issue, lack of experience with POP measurements in some countries, and missing continuation of personal training after a first capacity building project.