WECF and Eco-Forum worry about low level agenda

Preparation for the 52 country Environment Ministers Conference in Belgrade 2007

12.07.2006 |Sascha Gabizon

2nd Meeting of the Working Group of Senior Officials “Environment for Europe”
and 3rd Meeting of the Executive Committee
Geneva, 29-30 June 2006

European ECO-Forum Report

by Victoria Elias
Chair European Eco-Forum

The 2nd Meeting of the Working Group of Senior Officials “Environment for Europe” (WGSO-2) took place on 29-30 June 2006 in Geneva. It was followed by the 3rd session of the Executive Committee (Execom) on 30 June, afternoon.

The main issue of the WGSO-2 discussions and decisions was the agenda of the 6th Ministerial Conference “Environment for Europe” to be held in Belgrade, Serbia, October 2007 (Belgrade-2007). Besides this, current status of preparations, organizational issues and funding for the Conference were also discussed.
European ECO-Forum was represented by Victoria Elias (ECO-Accord, Russia, Chair of the ECO-Forum Coordination Board), Mara Silina (EEB, ECO-Forum Public Participation Campaign Coordinator, Sascha Gabizon, WECF, ECO-Forum Health Issue Group Coordinator and Andjelka Mihajlov, Environmental Ambassadors, Serbia and Regional FORUM EfE07 NGO Network Coordinator for International Activities).

The meeting was chaired by the WGSO Chair Miroslav Spasojevic, Serbia.
All documentation is available here.

MAIN DECISIONS TAKEN

General outline of the Belgrade Ministerial agenda agreed (see attached POSSIBLE DRAFT OUTLINE OF THE BELGRADE AGENDA_rev.3), while discussions may be continued in October (not all WGSO members were satisfied with the decision taken and Execom kept the option opened)

3 main themes will provide a structure of the discussions: implementation of EfE decisions, partnerships and capacity building

The 6th Ministerial EfE Conference in Belgrade-2007 should become a conference of delivery

BELGRADE MINISTERIAL AGENDA
After the general presentation of the documents and tasks for the session and approval of the agenda discussion focused immediately on the main item – the actual content and structure of the Ministerial agenda. The first draft was prepared by the Secretariat. It was very good for the ECO-Forum, as it included most of our priorities and had a 1⁄2-day Joint session for Ministers and NGOs on Biodiversity at the afternoon of the 2nd day, as we proposed. It also had a focus on Sustainable Consumption and Production (3rd day of the Ministerial) and gave attention to the implementation of previous decisions, regional priorities as well as envisaged 1/2 –day Joint Ministerial Meeting on Education for Sustainable Development at the 1st day.

However, the US delegation took the floor and suggested to use a different approach from the very beginning: they referred to the EU proposal at the end of 2005 to held in Belgrade “a Conference of Delivery” and suggested to structure all Ministerial meeting according to 3 main themes: implementation, partnership and capacity building. All topics therefore should be placed in this structure and the discussion should NOT focus on particular themes. Instead of this US proposed that all Ministers would speak on the 3 themes using examples on water, biodiversity, EECCA, private sector or whatever they would like. They presented a new agenda structure and said that such approach worked at the CSD Regional Implementation meetings.

Austria took the floor on behalf of the EU and said that they also would like to go back to EU proposal, mentioned by the US and reminded on proposed structure also around 3 themes (reviewing implementation of the EfE decisions): evaluation, partnerships and capacity building. They also stressed that EfE should listen to the needs of EECCA and SEE.

Further discussion went along the line of balancing 3 main themes with the wishes to discuss concrete topics and have thematic sessions on the agenda.

Norway supported the new approach and noted that there can be also many other themes, like water and sanitation, Health and Environment, EECCA Strategy implementation, etc. (sectoral list is long), and also a need to discuss the future of the EfE.

Greece stressed very clearly the importance of putting Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) on the agenda, said that it is already planned as a Joint meeting with Ministers of Education, significant progress is achieved in the region of the ESD Strategy implementation and there are several pilot countries preparing their reports to Belgrade, so the session within the Conference agenda is extremely important, plus it would also attract more Ministers to Belgrade-2007.

Georgia suggested following the proposal, but also ensuring that no topic would be lost from the agenda. Therefore they suggested re-drafting the structure and continuing the discussion of the new document. It was quite a long discussion with different proposals, pros and cons, but finally Secretariat made a new draft for the second morning. It was also discussed and the process faces difficulties.

FINALLY, Austria asked for a short break and all interested came together just before the end of the 2nd day. The compromise was found in a way to call the 1st afternoon “Parallel processes” and put ESD and Biodiversity there.

This was agreed. However further discussion at the Execom showed that the issue will most likely be re-opened in October.

THEMATIC ASPECTS AND OUTCOMES

The main outcoming documents of the Belgrade Conference will be a short Ministerial Declaration (limited number of topics, which are not discussed and agreed yet, most likely to be prepared by a small drafting group where we need to fight for a place!) and a longer Chairman’s summary (not negotiated)

Roundtable on biodiversity and a session on ESD are opposed by the US delegation, but still kept on the agenda

Subregional topics will include South-East European prospective and EECCA Environmental Strategy assessment. Central Asia wants also its’ sustainable development initiative to be included

Sustainable Consumption and Production will probably be a new thematic outcome prepared and facilitated by Sweden and UNEP.

NGO-MINISTERIAL ROUNDTABLE ON BIODIVERSITY
Further to our consultation on the CB-list on the proposal from PEBLDS to organise a biodiversity session jointly, Eco-Forum had a meeting with PEBLDS Secretariat. It was agreed that Eco-Forum and PEBLDS should act jointly and inform WGSO that we agreed to organise the session, but further consultations will be needed and more information on the format and arrangements will be given in October.

ESD STRATEGY
ESD is proposed as a joint Ministerial session of Ministers of Education and Ministers of Environment (this is submitted by the UNECE ESD Steering Committee and its Bureau). Initial proposal was to have ESD as afternoon (3h) of the 1st day. However, because of the US it was moved several times. Strong support to this item was expressed by Greece, Russia, Sweden, EU, Moldova (initially) and some others.

Finally, ESD issue remains as a first 2h session in the afternoon of the 1st day, right before the biodiversity.
A strange thing is that this afternoon is called now “PARALLEL PROCESSES”.

ORGANISATIONAL ISSUES
Participation

All delegations are limited up to 10 persons (this is questioned by a number of states)
All countries are invited to include NGOs in the delegations
NGO registration will be organised by the ECO-Forum (similar to Kiev), but “registration will be finalised by the Secretariat”. Deadline to present a list of registered NGOs is 1 July 2007
ECO-Forum may create a 75 persons delegation for each session on a rotation basis, where 10 persons are from Serbian NGOs, 54 are 1 from each of other UNECE states and 11 are experts and international networks.
Major groups will have a separate registration process (may be further discussed whether there will be also some limits introduced)
Deadline for media accreditation is 1 September 2007

Documents

Category 1 (for decisions) documents should be submitted to the Secretariat by 1 March 2007 and be not longer then 8.500 words (will be approved by the WGSO 5-7 June 2007)

Documents category 2 (prepared by other organisations in 3 languages), but reproduced by the UN – we announced that we will have biodiversity recommendations in this category – by 1 May 2007. Those who wish to distribute the documents themselves should inform the Secretariat and send e-version by 10 May 2007 and will receive a distribution list

Category 3 documents (no UN symbol) may be produced by participating organisations (should be approved by the WGSO) and distributed at the conference.

All further information and details on deadlines see in ECE/CEP/AC.11/2006/5

Interesting information
Please note that there are several interesting papers prepared by the Secretariat to the WGSO session. Among those I would like to draw your attention to “Possible activities that could provide input to the agenda of the Belgrade Conference” (document ECE/CEP/AC.11/2006/4). There is also a useful list of high level events for a preparatory period (Information paper No 2), which you may use in your work (see at the documentation web-site).

ECO-FORUM INTERVENTIONS
We took the floor several times during these 2 days. Our position was at the beginning to support the initial proposal of the agenda, where significant attention was given to sectoral issues, roundtable was planned for 3 h on the 2nd afternoon, ESD session was 3 h at the first afternoon and SCP (sustainable consumption and production) was planned for the 3rd morning together with the future of the process.
Later on we also lobbied for biodiversity and ESD, as well as supported attention to SCP (expressed interest to work on it in consistence to our earlier statements), subregional issues (EECCA and SEE) and need to discuss future of the process. We also stressed our interest to be included in the drafting group for the declaration, agenda or any other.
At the end, when Communication strategy for EfE was on agenda again we said that we are prepared to go ahead, but need support and that we still think that the strategy on this issue is needed.

Should you have further questions – contact please Mara, Sascha or Victoria.