2003-2004 ANNUAL REPORT

UNECE also provided advisory services to a large number of transition and emerging market economies in 2003 on issues such as trade facilitation, investment promotion, energy, environment, transport, institutional environment for SMEs, youth and women's entrepreneur- ship, and statistics.

UNECE technical cooperation was concentrated on capacity-building (training, transfer/exchange of expertise), project elaboration (formulating, designing and implementing projects), institutional build-up and policy formulation.

The bulk of the UNECE technical cooperation concerned the exchange and transfer of expertise, mainly in the form of workshops, seminars or forums, but also in the form of technical missions or study tours. Other capacity-building activities were associated with the implementation of projects mentioned above and the build-up of institutional capacities in countries in transition to help them implement the UNECE conventions.

Almost half of the technical cooperation activities of the UNECE Regional Advisers implemented in 2003 fell under the mandates of the Committee for Trade, Industry and Enterprise Development. They were followed by the activities mandated by the Inland Transport Committee.

In 2003, about half of the UNECE advisory services related to project elaboration were implemented in energy and transport in response to the mandates of the Committee on Sustainable Energy and the Inland Transport Committee. About half of the capacity-building activities were carried out in transport and statistics. UNECE technical cooperation in the area of institutional development concentrated on creating an environment supportive of entrepreneurship, and SME creation and development. Cooperation in policy-formulation was predominantly carried out in areas under the Committee for Trade, Industry and Enterprise Development.

UNECE has provided technical cooperation in statistics to around 20 countries in South-East Europe and CIS. This has taken the form of statistical capacity- building through services provided by the UNECE Regional Adviser on Statistics and through the regular meetings of the Conference of European Statisticians. Bilateral technical cooperation on statistics has concentrated on South-East Europe in 2003 (Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia and Montenegro, and in particular on the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia in the context of the internationally supervised population census required by the Ohrid Framework Agreement).

Multilateral cooperation on statistics has also been provided to groups of countries of South-East Europe and CIS in specific working sessions organized by the UNECE Statistical Division in cooperation with other organizations such as OECD, UNDP and the World Bank. Technical cooperation in statistics has covered a wide range of topics in 2003: general organization of the official statistical system, fundamental principles of official statistics, statistical legislation, population census, statistical indicators for human development and Millennium Development Goals reporting, national accounts and price statistics.

The overall geographic distribution of the UNECE Regional Advisers' activities reflected the subregional priorities of the UNECE technical cooperation. In the energy sector and environment, for example, UNECE technical cooperation focused mostly on the members of CIS, especially Central Asia. This is not surprising, considering the strategic importance of energy and water issues in these subregions.

Most of the resources made available to the Commission for funding technical cooperation activities come from extra-budgetary sources and are oriented towards the implementation and promotion of international conventions and protocols. A significant proportion of the resources also come from the UN Regular Budget, UN Development Account as well as from UN partner organizations. Finally, some additional resources come from donor's voluntary contributions.

Major challenges for 2004

The forthcoming political and economic changes brought about by EU enlargement will intensify the need for technical assistance among non-accessing countries to capture potential benefits and offset any negative impact associated with this process. This will include assessment of short- and long-term priorities for technical cooperation activities in the UNECE region and their alignment with the new demands and evolving situation.

The current focus on the implementation of the outcomes of recent global conferences and summits and the expected enhanced role that the United Nations regional commissions are to play in this area will require further strengthening of cooperation and coordination of UNECE with other organizations of the United Nations system as well as with non-United Nations partners.

Fund-raising will be a major challenge to complement the UNECE technical cooperation budget by mobilizing external support from bilateral donors, as well as other development organizations and financial institutions, such as UNDP, the World Bank, etc.

A UNECE technical cooperation strategy aimed at addressing these challenges is being drawn up and will be submitted for consideration at the 2004 Annual Session of the Commission.