| Overview : Inadequate hazardous waste (HW) management in most of the 22 Arab countries, served by Basel Convention Regional Centre for Training and Technology Transfer for Arab States in Egypt (BCRC-Egypt), generates considerable public health and environmental problems, including contamination of soil and water. It also prevents the countries of the region from meeting their obligations under Basel Convention. The Government of Finland has previously supported BCRC-Egypt through the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) in 2006-2010 to develop the institutional capacity of the Center and explore the challenges concerning hazardous wastes in the Arab countries. A second phase of the project, financially supported by the Government of Finland and managed by UNDP Egypt, was approved to be implemented in 2013-2015 with the overall objective of improving the environmentally safe management and the control of trans-boundary movements of hazardous wastes in the Arab countries. The project’s second phase was actually launched in the second half of the 2013, due to the political instability the region has passed through. The purpose of the project is to develop BCRC-Egypt into a sustainable regional knowledge and service center for hazardous waste issues for the Arab countries, as well as to consolidate the achievements of the previous phase of the project. BCRC-Egypt aims for the establishment of a new internationally accredited environmental monitoring laboratory, with a specialized HW lab unit that provides common analytical services and interpretations for HW identification and classification. It is expected that the lab will provide analytical services for all Arab countries. | 
