The Ozone Officers (NOOs) Network for English-speaking Africa approved at the 12th Executive Committee Meeting in March 1994 is one of the largest Networks comprising 28 countries. Member countries include Angola, Botswana, Egypt, Eritrea, Eswatini (the Kingdom of), Ethiopia, The Gambia, Ghana, Kenya, Lesotho, Liberia, Libya, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, Republic of South Sudan, Rwanda, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Africa, Sudan, Uganda, United Republic of Tanzania, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. This Network is supported by bilateral partners, Germany and Italy. The Network is managed by the OzonAction Compliance Assistance Programme (CAP) team under the Law Division and is based in UNEP’s Africa Office, Nairobi, Kenya.
Key Achievements
The Anglophone Network includes some countries that have unique situations in terms of a country’s political situation, and this makes it challenging to effectively implement Montreal Protocol activities in these countries due to security concerns. Examples of such countries include Libya, Somalia, South Sudan, and Sudan.
During the past years, compliance has continued to be the main theme for the Anglophone CAP team.
As of 2022, the HCFC phase-out in the Anglophone Network has been on track and under the required compliance levels by all countries in the region. Accurate and timely data reporting to both the Multilateral Fund and Ozone Secretariat has been positive and all countries are in compliance with data reporting.
The Anglophone Network has some of the earliest parties to ratify the Kigali Amendment on the phase down of HFCs. As of February 2023, twenty-three (23) out of 28 Anglophone Network countries have ratified the Kigali Amendment. The remaining countries are at an advanced stage to ratify the Kigali Amendment.
Gender mainstreaming
The Anglophone Network is committed to gender equality in line with the UN’s SDG 5 (gender equality and empowering women and girls) and actively promoting the opportunities available to women in its training and capacity-building programmes, as well as encouraging women in the Refrigeration and Air-Conditioning (RAC) sector and those considering the great variety of interesting and fulfilling careers in this fast-growing sector.
The Network organised for the first time, in collaboration with the Government of Egypt a workshop for the female RAC technicians held in Cairo, Egypt, to exchange experiences, develop skills, share knowledge/ideas with their counterparts from across the region, promote gender mainstreaming, and build their capacities to enable transitioning towards low-GWP technologies. The female RAC technicians each had the opportunity to present their work in their respective countries and the challenges they face in the industry and as women. The women had a good interchange of experiences and shared the gender-related challenges they are facing such as gender bias in employment practices, lack of employment opportunities, prejudice and discrimination by business owners and customers, sexual harassment, lack of recognition etc. Despite these challenges, these women are persevering and are demonstrating to the world that there is room for women in the RAC sector.
The Anglophone Network has been working with the countries to mainstream gender into their Montreal Protocol implementation such as gender disaggregated data collection, gender awareness-raising, and gender promotion activities. Gender mainstreaming continues to be an important agenda during Network and Thematic Meetings conducted both virtually and in person.
Specific challenges
The following are specific challenges faced by the Network:
- Illegal trade of ODS refrigerants, (increased cases of mixed and fake refrigerants) - failure in equipment performance, court cases.
- Handling of seized refrigerants and ODS based equipment.
- Linguistic barriers for Portuguese countries- 2 Portuguese-speaking countries.
- Some of the countries in the Network face challenges in advancing trade controls through the digitalization of ODS/HFC licensing and quota systems due to limited connectivity in the country or a lack of adequate capacities. This also affects online CP reporting, remote implementation, and social networking.
- Frequent changes in National Ozone Officers (NOOs) and high turnover of customs officers lead to delays in the implementation of activities, and more CAP time on training new NOO.
- The high number of informal sector technicians causes safety concerns in handling alternatives, especially hydrocarbons.
- Political instability and insecurity experienced in some countries result in delays in the implementation of activities and non-compliance status.
- Sharing of porous borders of many countries makes monitoring and prevention of illegal ODS trade challenging.
- COVID-19 impacts on HFC consumption: During the COVID-19 pandemic, economic conditions in Anglophone countries were affected to various extents leading to reductions in HFC consumption during the baseline years (2020-2022) in some Anglophone countries. However, consumption of HFCs is potentially increasing due to businesses resuming post-pandemic and economic growth in the region.
Key future objectives
In 2023 the Anglophone Network will focus on compliance assistance services, preparation and implementation of individual country projects including HCFC phase-out management plans (HPMPs) stage ii, additional activities related to Energy Efficiency, Institutional Strengthening Projects, Enabling Activities related to the HFC phase-down, and Kigali HFC Implementation Plans (KIP) preparation.
The objectives of the Network will be built on the recommendations and conclusions from the past network and thematic meetings, Meetings of the Parties, and the Executive Committee Meeting decisions. The Network will focus on the following issues:
- Promoting dialogue and providing assistance related to monitoring, reporting, verification, and enforcement (MRVE) to sustain the Montreal Protocol targets already met and to meet future targets.
- Guide NOUs to establish and update legislative and regulatory frameworks at national level to prepare for the implementation of the Kigali Amendment by including controls of HFCs in their legislation.
- Enhance collaboration of customs authorities and NOOs in regional trade blocks such as COMESA, ECOWAS, SADC, and SACU in Montreal Protocol related information exchange and control of illegal ODS trade and ensure full involvement of all countries in those blocks.
- Supporting NOUs to address different technical challenges related to adopting and deploying lower-global warming potential (GWP) alternatives including, but not limited to, updating standards/codes, safety considerations, availability of alternatives for commercial/industrial refrigeration sector, and other technical priorities of Article 5 countries.
- Capacity building for customs officials at the border level on the identification of refrigerants, better control of identification devices, and promoting border dialogues.
- Capacity building particularly for refrigeration technicians in the informal sector.
- Establish a certification system for technicians and professionals in RAC.
- Establish control of HCFC emission/venting control measures.
- Helping NOUs to understand and comply with the changing Article 7 and Country Programme data reporting requirements, as well as the new 2022 Harmonized System (HS) custom codes.
- Promote active participation in the “Informal Prior Informed Consent (iPIC) programme.
- Encourage linkages between NOUs and Technical Vocational Education and Training (TVET) authorities and increase the ownership/involvement of national training institutions to deliver training and adopt the curricula developed by UNEP, to further promote the sustainability of the capacity building delivered with Multilateral Fund assistance.
- Further brainstorming on the integration of energy efficiency in HPMP implementation.
- Introducing refrigerant management concepts and ideas for activities to be included in HPMPs/KIPs. Concepts such as setting leakage baselines and leak reduction targets to enable measurable consumption reductions in the servicing sector, thus allowing future projects to include quantitative rather than qualitative analysis on servicing sector consumption.
- Building the capacity of NOUs to understand and address new obligations under the Kigali Amendment.
- Gender mainstreaming: The English-Speaking Network will continue to build the capacity of Network countries to identify entry points to integrate gender into different workstreams of Montreal Protocol implementation and build upon and follow up on the recommendations made during the first Female RAC technicians' workshop that was held in Cairo, Egypt in January 2023.
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REGIONAL CONTACTS
Main Contact:
Mr Patrick Salifu
Montreal Protocol Regional Coordinator for Anglophone Africa
OzonAction CAP team - Africa
