A Sub-Regional Conference on the Phase-out of Leaded Gasoline in West Central Africa was held in Douala, Cameroon on March 16-17, 2004 with support from the "Partnership for Clean Fuels and Vehicles", UNEP, the Total Group, the Sonara Refinery, and the World Bank. A presentation of the conclusions of a recently conducted study on air quality in Douala was simultaneously organized.
The West Central African countries concerned are: Angola, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Congo (Brazzaville), Democratic Republic of the Congo (Kinshasa), Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Chad, and São Tomé and Principe.
This Conference, organized within the framework of the "Clean Air Initiative in Sub-Saharan African Cities" launched by the World Bank in 1998, is part of the follow-up to the Regional Conference on Lead Phase-out in Sub-Saharan Africa held at Dakar in June 2001. It was also held as a lead-up to the Dakar +2 Regional Conference, being organized jointly by the World Bank, UNEP and the other entities of the "Partnership for Clean Fuels and Vehicles" in Nairobi, Kenya on May 5-7, 2004, for the purpose of evaluating the progress made in eliminating lead from gasoline in Sub-Saharan Africa.
In the Dakar conference of June 2001, the participants representing the governments, the industry, and the civil society of 25 countries as well as the international organizations, decided upon eliminating leaded gasoline in Africa by the end of 2005 at the latest. The participants set up five sub-regional groups to discuss and finalize sub-regional action plans to meet that objective.
The Douala conference is an important step in that process.
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