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First Task Force Meeting, June 23-24, 2003, Sofia,
Bulgaria
The first Meeting of the Task Force on Electronic Information
Tools was held in Sofia upon the invitation of the Bulgarian
government. The meeting report is available.
Representatives of 19 governments, the Commission of the
European Communities, the United Nations Environment Programme
(UNEP), the World Bank, international and national non-governmental
organisations and the private sector attended. A
participants list is available. The meeting was chaired
by Kamelia Dikova (Bulgaria).
Before the meeting, 14 delegations submitted responses
to a questionnaire on the use of electronic tools in their
countries, the main findings of which were reported by
the Task Force Secretariat (see the meeting
report). Building on the results of the first Task
Force Workshop held in Arendal,
Norway 8-9, March 2001 the many priority actions listed
in the report were distilled into four key areas (see
Section VI of the meeting
report). Furthermore, relevant developments and processes
in the use of information and communication technologies,
information were subsequently reported including:
- a report by the Task Force Secretariat on preparations
for the World Summit
on the Information Society;
- a presentation by a representative of the World Bank
on the use of strategic
communication to promote sustainable development;
- a presentation by the representatives of UNEP on
the latest developments with UNEP.net;
and
- a report from GRID/Arendal
on activities promoting environmental information management
in Eastern Europe, the Caucausus and Central Asia.
The Task Force went on to share good practice examples,
among which it is relevant to mention the following:
The conclusions and results of the meeting may be summarised
as follows:
- The Task Force Secretariat and a voluntary core group,
the members of which would be Austria, Bulgaria, GRID-Arendal
and IHEAL set out to prepare a first draft of recommendations
on the more effective use of electronic tools to provide
public access to environmental information.
- Delegations were invited to prepare proposals for
their enhanced use of electronic information tools and
submit them to the Secretariat for forwarding to potential
donor governments and organisations.
- The Secretariat would further develop, together with
GRID-Arendal, the Convention’s Clearing House
Mechanism.
- The next meeting of the Task Force would take place
January 26-27, 2004 in
Geneva.
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