Implementing the Montreal Protocol is ultimately the responsibility of national governments. Recognizing this, the Multilateral Fund has provided funding to establish national ozone units within the governments of each recipient developing country. The funding is intended to enable the provision of at least one full-time staff member and to cover basic office and communication costs even for the smallest country.

Establishment of national ozone units has helped Article 5 countries to take ownership of their national ozone protection programme by providing a continuous link to the assistance under the Multilateral Fund, as well as a channel of communication to the agencies implementing Multilateral Fund projects.

Although most national ozone units were up and running by 1994, maintaining a national programme to phase out ODS constantly presents new technical and managerial challenges. The Multilateral Fund supported two initiatives to support the fledgling units as they assumed an increasing level of national responsibility. In 1993, the Government of Sweden initiated and funded a regional network for South-East Asia and the Pacific to enable national ozone officers from that region to meet twice a year, together with representatives from developed countries and implementing agencies, so providing a forum to discuss regional issues, disseminate information on and gather feedback on the policies of the Multilateral Fund. This peer support system proved successful and was quickly adopted by the Multilateral Fund. Today, there are nine regional or sub-regional networks, which form the backbone of a global ozone network, that includes 147 countries (4 countries from the Europe and Central Asia region are supported by GEF). 

As a second initiative, since 2000 the Multilateral Fund has funded UNEP’s Compliance Assistance Programme (CAP), which has enabled UNEP to relocate staff to the regions and deliver more timely advice and assistance to both individual countries and the regional networks.

The Country Programme is the first activity that the Multilateral Fund finances in an Article 5 country. It maps out the strategy and the action plan that the country would follow to eliminate the ODS consumption and production according to the Montreal Protocol schedules. The Country Programme is also the basis for the Multilateral Fund to finance projects and activities in countries.

 

Article 5 countries with a Country Programme have to present information annually to the Executive Committee on progress being made in the implementation of the Country Programme, in accordance with the decision of the Executive Committee on implementation of country programmes. The Fund Secretariat uses these data when analysing the status of compliance of Article 5 countries.

 

Since April 2007 a web based data entry system based on the country programme format for use by national ozone units has been available. The Fund Secretariat also developed a Practical Manual for Reporting in order to give Ozone Officers clearer advice and directions for completing these reporting forms. The manual was developed based on the earlier instructions on country programme data reporting, and also incorporates feedback received from Ozone Officers when reporting data for previous years. The manual is available as a PDF file for downloading.

 

In the event that it is not possible to use the web based form, country programme data should be submitted using the data reporting forms in Microsoft Excel format which can be downloaded by from this page.

 

 For more information please contact the Fund Secretariat.