The new millennium, which has just begun, brings with it several challenges in the areas of reducing extreme poverty and hunger, in the areas of energy supply, the mitigation of greenhouse gases, the conservation of biological diversity, the prevention of biotechnological risks and the development of clean
technologies, etc. In order to give equal opportunities to all countries to have equal opportunities to have favourable conditions for meeting these challenges, the international community, through the mechanisms provided for by conventions, provides
financial and technical support to the country parties that have ratified them.

Therefore, Togo, aware of the risks that persistent organic pollutants (POPs) pose to human health and the environment, signed and ratified the Stockholm Convention on POPs, respectively on 23 May 2001 and 22 July 2004. As a signatory country to the Convention, Togo is eligible for initial financial assistance from the GEF and has received funding from that institution and technical assistance from UNIDO, for the implementation of enabling activities under the GF/TOG/02/005 project, at the request of the Ministry of Environment and Forest Resources (MERF) made in July 2001.

The main objective of this project is to help the Country in the preparation of its National Implementation Plan (PNM) of the Stockholm Convention. Moreover, it should also help to strengthen national capacities to manage POPs and maximize the commitment of the State to implement the Convention. The development of the PNM, which is the subject of this summary, followed the following steps:

• establishment of a national project coordination team in May 2002, composed of representatives of the public and private sectors and representatives of civil society organizations, which thus
marks the effective start of the project;
• establishment of a project steering committee in July 2002;
• designation of the focal point, in accordance with article 9 of the Convention;
• organization of an initial national awareness-raising campaign for the parties national stakeholders in the POPs problem;
• conducting initial inventory studies of sources and quantities of POPs releases in 2003 and 2004, which provided information on the situation of POPs in Togo; 2
• organization of a workshop on the definition of national priorities in September 2004; • preparation of the first draft of the PNM from December 2004 to April 2005, in accordance with article 7 of the Convention;
• organization of meetings at the level of three groups in September 2004;
• organization of meetings at the level of three groups thematic (pesticides, PCBs and unintentional POPs) for the analysis of the UPNM draft on 10, 11 and 12 May 2005;
• meeting at the level of a small group on the prioritization of areas of intervention in December 2005, following the training workshop conducted by two UNITAR experts from 8 to 10 November 2005;
• organization of the national PNM validation workshop on 30 March 2006. The validated PNM document is the result of a long participatory development process that involved all stakeholders made up of representatives of public and private institutions, NGOs and grassroots organizations. In accordance with the interim guidelines for the development of the Stockholm Convention PNM, it is structured in two essential parts, namely: (i) the country's reference data and (ii) the elements of the strategy and action plans of the National Implementation Plan.