"You cannot get through a single day without having an impact on the world around you. What you do makes a difference and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make" - Jane Goodall
Current activities
In spring 2021 we started the project "Improving skills of NGOs of EECCA-states to participate in procedures according to the UNECE SEA Protocol" were the European ECO Forum worked together with Resource and Analysis Center "Society and Environment" (Ukraine) and Oekobuero (Austria). Within the project we organised training for EECCA region NGOs on how SEA can be applied to infrastructure plans/programmes related to transport sector. That resulted in selection of 5 NGOs who were performing a moot SEA process (reports) using real infrastructure plans or programmes as a testing material. Now the project is over and these organisations can serve as the SEA Excellence Centers and will be able to help and advice others to use SEA for future plans and programmes. The five NGOs are: Ecohome (Belarus), Research-Intellectual Club "Dialogue of Generations"(RICDOG)(Georgia, Center for Environmental abd Legal Initiative "Globus" (Kazakhstan), Public organisation "Youth Group for Environmental Protection" in Sughd region (Tajikistan) and Black Sea Women's Club (Ukraine). The project is funded by the German Federal Environmental Ministry's Advisory Assistance Programme (AAP) for environmental protection in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, the Caucasus and Central Asia and other countries neighbouring the European Union. It is supervised by the German Environment Agency (UBA). You will find all information about this project in a separate page of this website called Espoo Convention.
News
UNECE will support Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, the Republic of Moldova and Ukraine to further enhance strategic environmental assessment (SEA) and transboundary environmental impact assessment (EIA) to prevent and mitigate damage to the environment and health from economic growth. This will contribute to a major EU-funded programme aiming at greening national economies and promoting sustainable development in the six Eastern Partnership countries.
Under this initiative, UNECE is supporting the countries to fully align their national legislation with the UNECE Protocol on Strategic Environmental Assessment (Protocol on SEA) and the Convention on Environmental Impact Assessment in a Transboundary Context (Espoo Convention), as well as with relevant EU Directives, and to ensure its effective and systematic application. This assistance will be provided by UNECE in 2019-2022 with funding of USD 2.6 million from the “European Union for Environment” (EU4Environment) programme.
Upcoming events
The Industrial Accidents Convention’s Working Group on Implementation (WGI) organizes a special session for a seminar on good practices and lessons learned in implementing the UNECE Convention on the Transboundary Effects of Industrial Accidents. The seminar will be held in Geneva and online on 3-4 February 2022 from 11:00–13:00 and 15:00–17:00 (Central European Time) on both days. It is included in the Convention’s workplan for 2021-2022, adopted by the Conference of the Parties at its 11th meeting in December 2020. The main objective of the special session is to hold a seminar that promotes good practices and lessons learned in the implementation of the Industrial Accidents Convention in order to help overcome implementation gaps by facilitating the exchange of information among Parties and other countries. National authorities will present on good practices and lessons learned from their countries to a broad audience. The target audience includes national authorities, operators of hazardous installations, partner organizations, scholars and students, within and beyond the UNECE region.
Mission, Goal and Tasks
The Pan-European ECO Forum is a broad, inclusive coalition of sustainable development NGOs (environmental citizens organisations as well as NGOs with related scopes like human rights NGOs, health organisations etc.) which are interested in participating in the official Pan-European processes (Environment for Europe ministers conferences as well as related processes like Environment & Health, Environment & Transport, Environment & Agriculture etc. as well as outcomes of the EfE Ministerial conferences, namely Conventions and Protocols) with the final goal of promoting sustainable development in Europe and globally. The goal of the coalition is to serve the NGO community and to facilitate the participation in these processes in order to be together stronger and more influencial, however without preventing individual organisations to perform separately.
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