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UNEP NEWS December 2007
Uruguay: Forging Development Capacities
The meeting of Ministers of the Environment of MERCOSUR countries took place in Montevideo from November 21st to November 24th to examine the status of previous decisions and agreed-upon joint programs.
A meeting of the United Nations System Country Team was held in Montevideo, Uruguay, on December 4th and 5th to discuss the priorities of the One UN Programme for Uruguay and its presentation to the media.
Uruguay is one of the eight countries selected by the United Nations (UN) to experiment until 2010 with a cooperation plan for coordinated development among the agencies of the world forum and national and local governments.
This is how Uruguayan Government authorities and UN Representatives explained it when presenting the 2007-2010 Joint Programme “Capacity Building for Development”.
The other nations where this programme will be implemented, as part of the UN reform effort called “United in Action,” are Albania, Cape Verde, Mozambique, Pakistan, Rwanda, Vietnam, and Tanzania. Uruguay is the only country deemed to be of “middle-income” by the world forum and was especially selected for this.
This project, which will attract new development funds totalling $15 million in the next four years, will enable cooperating agencies, the Government, and municipalities to work together harmoniously, as they did in the past but bilaterally or independently, Enrique Rubio, Director of the Planning and Budget Office (OPP) of the Government of the Republic or Uruguay, explained.
“This is how the development efforts that were made in a disorganised fashion in the past, on which there was no information and which were frequently repeated, will be reorganised within a framework aligned with the priorities of the Government, such as employment, innovation, and social policies,” he added.
Based upon these priorities, Montevideo drafted a list of nine general projects, which in turn are comprised by 45 sub-projects linked to energy production, sustainable development, job creation, comprehensive territorial development, the strengthening of social institutions, the reduction of gender and age inequalities, and decentralisation for citizen participation.
Meanwhile, Foreign Minister Reinaldo Gargano stressed that Uruguay was chosen one of the nations where this Pilot Project will be executed, because it is considered a “middle-income” country. However, “many countries deemed so show many inequalities and vulnerabilities and have many places where poverty prevails,” he said.
In the meantime, Pablo Mandeville, UN Resident Coordinator in Uruguay, pointed out that the Joint Programme is the result of a large number of contacts among civil society, the Government, and international organisations and that it has many years.
The following are the four national priorities and that are part of the structure of the current Joint Programme: sustainable economic growth with emphasis on productive diversification; poverty reduction; the reduction of economic, social, territorial, gender, inter-generational, and ethnic inequalities; and the promotion of human rights with a deepening of democratic quality.
The Programme seeks to ''strengthen coherence in practice among the various United Nations agencies, as well as to increase their effectiveness, efficiency, and impact,” Mandeville said.
Meanwhile, Ricardo Sanchez, Director of the Regional Office for Latin America and the Caribbean of the United Nations Environment Programme, stressed that with this Programme, “Uruguay is committing itself, among other areas, to promoting clean technologies” and sustainable consumption.
Ibero-American: Forum of Water Directors
The Ibero-American Forum of Water Directors was held in Lima, Peru, from December 10th to December 13th to discuss, as a basic topic, the training programme proposals on the issue of Water Resources.
There was also a report on the Water Fund for $1.5 billion, created by Spain, and on the creation of a Web page for Water Directors. The main focus of the Director of the UNEP Regional Office, who participated in the event, was the issue of capacity building and technological support, in agreement with the Bali Strategic Plan and the UNEP Water Strategy.
Integrating Watershet and Coastal Area Managment in Small Island Developing States
A Regional Workshop on Institutional Legislation and Structure Policies related to the IWCAM – SIDS (Integrating Watershed and Coastal Area Management in Small Island Developing States) was held in Nassau, Bahamas, from December 27th to December 29th, 2007.
The workshop’s objective was to present the draft of the document entitled “Toolkit for Harmonising and Enhancing Laws and Institutions to Implement IWCAM.”
Workshop on UNEP Regional Operations
The Workshop on national operations and activities of the UNEP took place on December 5th and December 6th, 2007, in Geneva, Switzerland. The UNEP Regional Office was represented by the Programme Officer, Isabel Martinez, who briefed participants on the experiences of the Regional Office in various UNCTs, as well as on a set of programmes and activities on the Environment and Climate Change (Panama, Nicaragua, Peru, Ecuador, and Brazil). The Pilot Programme One UN in Uruguay was also explained in full detail.
Andean Subregional TUNZA Workshop
Approximately 20 youths from Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador, Venezuela, and Colombia participated in the Andean Subregional TUNZA Workshop held in Bogota. These activities are part of the project for youths promoted by the UNEP in collaboration with Bayer Company.
Various forms of participation were studied at the workshop. The following forms were mentioned: cartoon, photograph, and billboard exhibits and film festivals and cycles with materials supplied to each country by the UNEP.
Among other activities, training workshops on the issues of leadership and Project financing and implementation were held. It was also agreed to create a Web page for the TUNZA Project for the region in both Spanish and English with materials and information generated from the activities of each one of the subregions, as well as to create a database on environmental youth organizations in the Andean Region.
Caribbean Network for Integrated Rural Development
In the last few months, the UNEP Regional Office has been working, along with the Government of Trinidad and Tobago and the Caribbean Network for Integrated Rural Development (CNIRD), on the refocus of the Renovation and Strengthening Process of the Partnership Initiative on Sustainable Land Management (PISLM) for Small Island Developing States (SIDS).
The PISLM (Partnership Initiative on Sustainable Land Management) is one of the initiatives outlined in the Caribbean SIDS Programme, approved by the Forum of Ministers of the Environment of Latin America and the Caribbean.
V Inter-American Conference on Corporate Social Responsibility
The V Inter-American Conference on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) was held in Antigua, Guatemala, on December 9th and December 10th.
Emilio Guzman, consultant for the Assessment and Early Warning Unit of the UNEP/ROLAC, participated in this conference, which was organised by the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB) and which gathered interested parties from various sectors to exchange experiences on Corporate Social Responsibility.
As in previous years, the conference had a regional emphasis, focusing upon giving positive examples, promoting the participation of businesses, and carefully analysing the basic tools for the establishment of CSR in the private sector.
The promotion of the GEO LAC 2008 process and the exploration of collaboration opportunities with the private sector were the main objectives of the participation of the Regional Office.
Workshop on Environmenrtal Justice Access in the Caribbean
The Subregional Workshop on Environmental Justice Access for Small Island Developing States took place in St. Michael, Barbados, on December 10th and December 11th, 2007. The meeting gathered a “group of experts on environmental justice access for Small Island Developing States (SIDS), and the objective was to make SIDS aware of the ways available to promote environmental justice as part of the legal framework existing in the region.
The meeting was enriched thanks to the various backgrounds of and field work done by the members of the group, which includes judges, legal officials in charge of the implementation of environmental regulations at the national level, Environmental Law professors, NGO representatives, and private attorneys.
The objective of the Group of Experts was to review the ways and/or mechanisms available to the public in general to access environmental justice in SIDS in the Caribbean.
To be more specific, the following are the issues discussed by the group of experts: revision of the state of environmental justice access in Caribbean SIDS; analysis of the study cases on environmental justice with a view to drafting a programme for Caribbean SIDS on the capacity to implement access to environmental justice.
Summons of the 10th International Billboard Biennal in Mexico
Billboards will be a weapon to fight climate change. The 10th International Billboard Biennial in Mexico will be devoted to sustainable development issues, particularly a special category for works that ponder the effects and consequences global warming has on our planet.
The summons for world designers is out, and the sponsor of this summons, on the issue of Climate Change, is the Regional Office for Latin America and the Caribbean of the United Nations Environment Programme. For the third consecutive year, the UNEP is a partner of the Biennial and “Trama Visual”, the institution that organizes the events.
The participating designers must make proposals to solve the issue of climate change. The organizers of the Biennial believe that it will contribute to creating further awareness in civil society, as well as in organizations and institutions, about the need to cooperate in reverting the trend.
The guest country of the 10th International Billboard Biennial in Mexico will be Japan, which will be represented by renowned designers from that nation. The programme of conferences, exhibits, and workshops is being prepared and will be made public in May 2008. In Mexico City, the Franz Mayer Museum will be the venue of an exhibit on which award-winning designers, as well as members of the past nine biennials, will participate. The biennial’s international design event will take place in late October and early November in Xalapa, with the participation of artistic groups from the University of Veracruz.
Upcomin Activities
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- January 24 at the College of Mexico, Mexico City
Seminar organised by DEWA "Back to Our Common Future"
- January 21-24, 2008, Bahrain
Project on Gender, Poverty, and Environment (GPEP) Training at Bahrain
- January 27 to February 1, 2008. Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic
Forum of Ministers of the Environment of Latin America and the Caribbean
- February 13-14, 2008 Lima, Peru
Meeting of Environmental Justice in the Andean Subregion
- January 17-18, 2008. Santiago, Chile
TUNZA Southern Cone Subregional Meeting
- Third week of February Spanish-Speaking Meso-America and Caribbean Sub-regional Meeting, San Jose, Costa Rica.
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