In early 2003, UNECE together with UNITAR developed the pilot programme to assist c ountries in preparing a national profile to assess their capacities to implement the Aarhus Convention. It provides participating countries with a methodology for a comprehensive multistakeholder process of assessing capacities and needs on the national level. The national profile documents prepared in the context of the project will provide an indication of what steps are required to implement the Convention effectively and will also facilitate identification of priorities for targeted capacity-building. The partner institutions developed a guidance document establishing the main areas and methodology for the development of national profiles, selected Kyrgyzstan, Serbia and Montenegro, and Tajikistan as pilot countries, and worked together with the national project coordination teams on the preparation of the profiles. The national profiles have so far been developed in two of the three pilot countries. Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan also used the multistakeholder consultative process and the information in the national profiles to prepare of their national implementation reports under decision I/8 of the Meeting of the Parties. The methodology, which will be further improved, based on the feedback received in the course of project implementation, will be made available to other Parties and organizations.