Introduction 

On January 22^nd 2006, representatives of 25 different non-governmental organizations met in Salvador, State of Bahia, Brazil, to discuss on the contribution of the civil society for the National Implementation Plan of the Stockholm Convention (NIP-POPs). Nowadays the Brazilian Government is surveying the national needs to elaborate the final proposal of implementation (PDF-B).

The Seminar was sponsored by IPEN - International POPs Elimination Network – through the International POPs Elimination Project (IPEP) and by the Brazilian Government through the Environment Quality Department of the Ministry of Environment and the General Coordination of the Environmental Sanitation Surveillance of the Ministry of Health.   <?xml:namespace prefix = o />

The Seminar was divided into two meetings, the first day to introductions of the participants, general discussions on issues related to the chemicals in the national agenda (Brown Agenda) and the formal creation of a Work Group on Chemicals (GT_QUÍMICOS), a fusion between FBOMS’s Chemical Safety Workgroup and Brazilian Environmental Justice Network’s BAN Workgroup. The fusion works began in October 2003, were organized in 2005 and formalized in 2006. 

The second day was dedicated to POPs: their impacts on health and environment, the background of the Stockholm Convention, the role of the civil society, and the national implementation program of the Convention on POPs (NIP-POPs).  The debate began after presentation by the Ministry of Environment’s representative who exposed the planned actions that are being executed by the Federal Government.  

In the morning of the third day the participants formed three groups to discuss about the challenges, difficulties, actions and strategies pertinent to the mobilization and participation of the civil society for the implementation process of the de Stockholm Convention on POPs. In the afternoon, the plenary session was held where the results of the groups were presented, followed by discussions, suggestions and the necessary adjustments to be addressed to the Ministry of Environment, Ministry of Health and National Committee of Chemical Safety (CONASQ).  

The seminar’s participants established as an important measure the creation of a Strategic Group to stipulate key actions for mobilization and participation of the civil society in this process.  The strategies and actions were divided into 3 groups:  pesticides, urban issues and industrial issues, and crossed with areas such as education, public right to know, inventory of POPs, impacts to community health, including workers, involvement of the Judiciary Power, Public Prosecutors, universities and politicians.  Besides, they recognized the importance of the meeting as the first opportunity for a group of NGOs to know each other in person and build together an institutional relationship that shall be very useful in the national and regional implementation process. 

The purpose of this report is to describe the Brazilian scenario, explore the activities of the Seminar Mobilizing Brazilian Civil Society for Stockholm Convention Implementation and its conclusions, present the list of participants, give a general description about the financial support by the several sponsorships, and, at last, as the Annex A, present the resume of the Civil Society participation in the preparatory Seminars aiming at the National Implementation Plan (NIP) related to the PDF-B Project supported by the Global Environment Facility (GEF) and executed by the Brazilian Government.