The implementation of economic instruments is increasingly considered in environmental policy making. In particular, SAICM encourages the exploration of economic instruments as a tool to ensure fair allocation of costs for chemicals management at the national level. However, to be efficient they need to be carefully designed and implemented, taking into account the national context and issues at stake. Knowledge of how to efficiently design and implement such instruments for chemicals management is therefore critical for advancing the sound management of chemicals.
With the generous support of the Norwegian Government, UNEP DTIE Chemicals Branch conducted the project “ Development of Guidance on Economic Instruments” to provide guidance to policymakers on the use of economic instruments for achieving Sound Management of Chemicals, with a focus on financing issues. This work especially built on the UNDP-UNEP Partnership Initiative and the 2009 UNEP Training Resource Manual on the Use of Economic Instruments for Environmental and Natural Resource Management.
Its three main objectives were to:
- Identify which instruments are suitable for use given their specific chemicals management priorities and development context;
- Determine where cost recovery instruments could be implemented to generate finance for broader chemicals management programmes, while also achieving improved environmental management;
- Design appropriate economic instrument measures, taking into account key concerns such as distributional impacts, political acceptability and practicability of such schemes.
To achieve these objectives, a baseline assessment was first conducted – including desktop research, a questionnaire survey of SAICM National Focal Points and in-depth interviews.
- Desktop research A full bibliography can be found here.
- Questionnaire Survey The questionnaire can be found here.
- Interviews The question matrix used to guide the 30 minute long, semi-structured interviews can be found here.
- Analysis Methods Coding used for data analysis can be found here.
The baseline assessment served the development of “An Analysis of Economic Instruments in Sound Management of Chemicals”.
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