RAF7016 Final Coordination meeting in Harare Zimbabwe

S.K. Bartilol (Chief Technologist) attended the Final coordination meeting for Project RAF7016 “Establishing and Improving Air Pollution Monitoring in Africa” which took place in Harare, Zimbabwe from 17th – 21st February 2020. The event was hosted by the Ministry of Environment, Climate, Tourism and Hospitality Industry with the Permanent Secretary opening the meeting and closed by a representative.

The main objective of the meeting was to make country presentations, review progress made, achievements reached, lessons learned and future activities.  A total of 17 out of the 23 countries that were participating in the project attended. These were, Algeria, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Côte d'Ivoire, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Egypt, Ghana, Kenya, Lesotho, Madagascar, Morocco, Niger, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Sudan, Tunisia and Zimbabwe. Those not in attendance included; Gabon, Tanzania. Also in attendance were IAEA officials; Mr. Felix O. Wanjala (PMO, Africa Section), Dr Roman Padilla (TO, RAF7016) and Dr Moussa Bhonoukla who was the DG for RAF7016 project. From the countries presentations, it was observed that countries were in various stages of the project activities with only a few (Morocco, Egypt, Ghana and Senegal) having completed. The project activities were Particulate Matter Sampling, Gravimetry analysis, Black Carbon and Elemental analysis and source apportionment. Many countries including Kenya were awaiting elemental analysis results from Algeria for them to do source apportionment. Two member states (Zimbabwe and Lesotho) barely sampled due to late delivery of samplers, while Sudan was affected by political instability.

In light of progress observations, the assessment of overall average achievement of the objectives by MS was put to about 50% and it was agreed that the project lifetime be extended by 1 year to enable MS to complete the activities. Further to this, a group of five Member States(MS) was formed to collect data and information from all MS and write the final report of the project in a meeting that is proposed to be held in September 2020 in Vienna. The group of MS selected are those which had completed their project activities (Morocco, Egypt, Ghana and Senegal).

Future Activities

The meeting noted that the pollution parameters covered in RAF7016 excluded PAHs, VOCs, Anions and Cations and which are important in the overall assessment of air pollution and source apportionment. As such, it was proposed that a project proposal be drafted to cover as many pollutants as possible and submit to IAEA for consideration for 2021/2022 cycle.

European Air Pollution Project

The TO reported to the meeting that there was an upcoming European Project with interest to recruit African countries with capacity and capability to measure and analyse PM, BC, Ion, PAHs and VOCs. As such he urged MS to think of partnering with institutions in their home countries to complement the parameters they cannot do so as to stand high chances of being included in that project.

Equipment

The PMO reported that there was still some money left and MS proposed that they are utilised in procuring instruments and supporting some activities. Among the propositions agreed by MS included purchase portable weather unit, Reference Materials, Filters, B-Axil software and Expert Missions.

Conclusions

PMO informed the meeting that in future, all projects will come under AFRA and urged MS to work closely with other institutions with related activities in their counties for the benefit of the country.