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Core Activities

According to the current workplan, the following activities are to be implemented during the biennium 2019-2020:


a) Outreach, awareness-raising and strategic partnerships


  • Targeted communication (newsletters, press releases, leaflets, postcards, website, social media, promotion of brochures and online training on industrial accidents and participation in international and regional meetings and forums)
  • Working visits and high-level missions to Parties
  • Working visits to other stakeholders
  • Follow-up to the United Nations/ OECD workshop on natural-hazard- triggered technological accidents (Natech) risk management: dissemination of outcome, good practices, and information sharing on Convention’s role with respect to Natech
  • Meetings with partner organizations to coordinate joint activities, including inter-agency coordination meetings
  • Donor meetings and bilateral visits

Supporting body: Bureau


b) Facilitation of implementation


  • Risk assessment


Follow-up to the exchange of experience and good practices among countries on risk assessment methodologies, a Report on risk assessment methodologies will be prepared, under the leadership of Switzerland and under the guidance of the small group on risk assessment and the UNECE Industrial Accidents Convention.


Lead/supporting countries: Austria, Slovenia, Switzerland, further to the support of Belarus, Latvia, and Serbia as part of the small group on risk assessment
  • Sustainable Development Goals / Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction

Support for countries’ implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, including its Goals, and of the Sendai Framework with a focus on industrial accident prevention and preparedness by contributing to the relevant reports on the Goals and to the Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction and to meetings and platforms.


  • Land-use planning and industrial safety

Follow-up to the exchange of information on land-use planning and industrial safety (2016 and 2018 seminars): a repository of good practices, containing goods practices in the implementation of and integration between land-use planning, industrial safety, environmental assessment, disaster risk reduction and public information and public participation.


Lead/supporting countries/organizations: European Union/European Investment Bank, in cooperation with the ECE Committee on Urban Development, Housing and Land Management, the ECE Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters and the ECE Convention on Environmental Impact Assessment in a Transboundary Context and its Protocol on Strategic Environmental Assessment


  • Fire-fighting water and retention strategies

Follow-up to the development of safety guidelines and good practices for fire-fighting water retention under the Joint Expert Group on Water and Industrial Accidents: finalization of publication


Lead countries: to be determined


  • Contingency planning

Seminar to support implementation of the checklist on contingency planning


Lead country: Hungary, in cooperation with the International Commission for the Protection of the Danube River (ICPDR) and the Joint Expert Group on Water and Industrial Accidents


c) Servicing intergovernmental bodies and expert groups


  • Eleventh meeting of the Conference of the Parties
  • Meetings of the Bureau (estimated 4)
  • Meetings of the Working Group on Implementation (estimated 3 or 4)
  • Meetings of the Working Group on the Development of the Convention (none foreseen in this period)
  • Meetings of the Joint Expert Group on Water and Industrial Accidents (estimated 2)

d) General programme management


  • Other secretariat activities, including human resources, financial and other management-related functions, administrative actions needed to ensure the functioning of the ECE industrial safety unit and, as part of the ECE secretariat, reporting on substantive and administrative issues.