Assessment of Toxic Substances
UNEP implements a project aiming at making regional assessments of the damages and threats posed by Persistent Toxic Substances (PTS). The project relies upon the collection and interpretation of existing data through questionnaires from the country level. It is funded by the Global Environment Facility (GEF) in conjunction with several donor states. GEF is a unit of UNDP and three agencies (UNDP, UNEP and the World Bank) are responsible for implementation.

The overall objective of the project is to deliver a comprehensive regionally based assessment of the damage and threats posed by persistent toxic substances, and to evaluate and agree the priorities between chemical related environmental issues at the regional level in order to focus subsequent interventions on the most important and pressing issues.[155]

A so-called Steering Group will advise the Project Manager, promote buy-in to the project from the organisations involved and co-ordinate with other projects inside and outside GEF to avoid duplication and overlap. The Steering Group will suggest corrective actions, if necessary. The Steering Group will be responsible for providing overall guidance to the process of implementation of the project. Dr. Rainer Koch of Bayer Corporation and Dr. Michael Harris of ICI are part of the Steering Group. The majority of members are from UN bodies (UNEP, ILO, WHO, FAO), two members are from the World Bank and there are no people from public interest groups/NGO's involved.[156]

155 http://www.chem.unep.ch/pts/ (source: UNEP, date viewed: 19.12.01)
156 http://www.chem.unep.ch/pts/projmgt/stgrpmbrs.htm (source: UNEP, date viewed: 19.12.01)