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Greening the economy and improving air quality will top agenda of Eighth Environment for Europe Ministerial Conference

Greening the economy, an approach to foster a healthy economy while ensuring environmental sustainability and social equity, is considered as one of the most promising ways to achieve sustainable development. Air pollution, which causes 7 million deaths per year worldwide and 600,000 premature deaths in Europe, has become the world’s single largest environmental health risk. Improving air quality is thus an urgent imperative.  These will be the main themes of the Eighth Environment for Europe Ministerial Conference that will gather high-level representatives of UNECE’s 56 member countries in Batumi, Georgia, on June 8-10 2016.  


The conference website has just been launched by the host country and will be updated regularly at http://www.efebatumi.com/en/.


Online registration to the Conference will be open until Monday, 29 February 2016. Make sure to pencil in the conference’s dates and to register by the deadline! 


Preparatory documents are available on the webpage of the special session of the UNECE Committee on Environmental Policy, to be held from 23-25 February 2016.


The Ministerial Conference is expected to include up to approximately 800 official delegates, fostering a unique partnership between member States of the UNECE, organizations of the United Nations system represented in the region, other intergovernmental organizations, Regional Environment Centres, non-governmental organizations, the business sector and other representatives of civil society.


The Ministerial meetings in the Environment for Europe (EfE)framework, taking place every four  to five years, provide a high-level platform for stakeholders to discuss, decide and join in efforts addressing environmental priorities across the 56 countries of the UNECE, and serve as a regional pillar of sustainable development. At the same time, the EfE process focuses on helping countries reap real benefits in terms of strengthening environmental cooperation and increasing capacity building, which will bring concrete activities in the Pan-European region environmental sector.

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