Espoo Convention on Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) in a Transboundary Context

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United Nations Economic Commission for Europe

Convention on Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) in a Transboundary Context

Extraordinary meeting of the Parties to the Convention

Extraordinary Meeting and joint signing ceremony, Kiev, 21 May 2003

This page presents information on the Extraordinary meeting (including speeches), SEA side event and Ministerial Declaration at the Kiev Ministerial Conference.

Documents for the Extraordinary meeting

Chair: Mr. Bozo Kovacevic (Croatia), Environment Minister

Presentation:

Mr. Terje Lind (Norway), Chair of the Working Group on Strategic Environmental Assessment

Keynote addresses:

Mr. Borge Brende (Norway), Minister of Environment

Ms. Aitkul Samakova (Kazakhstan), Minister of Environment (in Russian)

Rt. Hon. Margaret Beckett MP (United Kingdom), Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

Dr. Svitlana Kravchenko (Ukraine), Coordinator of ECO-Ecopravo-Lyiv

Mr. Roberto Bertollini (WHO/EURO), Director, Division of Technical Support, Health Determinants, World Health Organization's Regional Office for Europe

Other speeches:

Mr. Petru Lificiu (Romania), Minister of Water and Environmental Protection

Mr. Corrado Clini (Italy), Director General, International Environmental Cooperation, Ministry of Environment

Mr. Charles Goerens (Luxembourg), Minister of Environment (in French)

Toni Popovski (REC), Executive Director, Regional Environment Centre for Central and Eastern Europe

H.E. Ljubomir Janev (the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia), Minister of Environment and Physical Planning

Tomáš Novotný (Czech Republic), Deputy Minister of the Ministry of the Environment

H.E. Ms Vasso Papandreou (Greece), Minister for the Environment, Physical Planning and Public Works of the Hellenic Republic on behalf of the European Union and the Acceding countries

The Declaration by the Ministers of Environment of the UNECE region (the full text of which may be accessed by clicking here ) stated with respect to Strategic Environmental Assessment that:

33. We recognize the importance of strategic environmental assessment (SEA) in the region, which offers a way to assess the impact of plans and programmes on a broad scale and facilitates timely environmental assessment of specific actions that have been addressed at the programmatic level. We invite all countries in the region to consider adopting, if they have not already done so, domestic procedures for the preparation of environmental assessment documents that can address plans and programmes.

34. In this regard, we, the Ministers and Heads of delegation of States adopting and signing the Protocol on Strategic Environmental Assessment to the Espoo Convention on Environmental Impact Assessment in a Transboundary Context, welcome it. This Protocol underlines the crosssectoral approach by integrating environmental, including health, considerations into the preparation and adoption of plans, programmes, and, to the extent appropriate, policies and legislation and thus further contributes to sustainable development. We invite all interested UNECE States to sign this Protocol and to work actively for its ratification and implementation. We recognize the close cooperation between the governing bodies of the Espoo and Aarhus Conventions and the active participation of the health sector and NGOs in the negotiations of the Protocol on SEA, and we encourage these organizations to support its imple mentation. We also invite all interested UNECE States that have not yet ratified or acceded to the Espoo Convention to do so at the earliest opportunity.

	Formal documents Belgrade Conference & Espoo Convention

	SEA Side Event In the extraordinary meeting of the Parties, an SEA side event was held on 22 May 2003 at the Kiev Ministerial Conference "Environment for Europe": Towards Rapid Implementation of the Kiev SEA Protocol. It was organised by REC Szentedre, UNECE Secretariat to the Espoo Convention, UNDP Regional Bureau for Europe and CIS, and UNEP Economics & Trade Branch. The side event aimed to support rapid implementation of the SEA Protocol by discussing the effectiveness of different SEA capacity building strategies. The side event presented experience from previous SEA capacity building and discussed opportunities for transfer of relevant experience to the Eastern Europe, Caucasus and Central Asia region. See also the REC web page on the event.