The United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (ECE) and the Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources of the Republic of Azerbaijan organized the following events that took place on 11 and 12 May 2015 in Baku:

(a) a training workshop on the practical application of strategic environmental assessment (SEA) - 11 May 2015 at the Central Park Hotel (Suleyman Rahimov, Baku, Azerbaijan); and

(b) public consultations on SEA scoping in Azerbaijan - 12 May 2015 at the Caspian Plaza (Conference Hall, Jafar Jabbarli str. 44 , Baku, Azerbaijan).

The second training workshop focused on existing methods used for assessing environmental impacts of strategic documents and builds on knowledge and skills developed by the participants during the SEA scoping and baseline analysis workshop (Baku, 3-4 March 2015). Up to 20 environmental assessment experts from energy, economy, environment and other sectorial authorities as well as and civil society representatives continued their training on SEA through this event. The participants had an opportunity to immediately apply the obtained knowledge for assessing the environmental impacts related to the implementation of the National Strategy on the use of alternative and renewable energy sources, and for developing proposals to mitigate and monitor the identified impacts. In addition, the participants will discuss approaches and techniques to prepare the SEA report and develop the SEA report outline for the Strategy.

The aim of SEA (Strategic Environmental Assessment) was to ensure that the Strategy properly integrates environmental and health considerations and likely adverse impacts are avoided or minimised, while environmental and health benefits related to the Strategy are maximised.

The workshop was followed by the first public consultation meeting to inform national stakeholders about the SEA for the National Strategy on the use of alternative and renewable energy sources and its preliminary results. The purpose of the public consultations was to present and get the stakeholders’ feedback on the key environmental and health issues, which are relevant to the Strategy and which will be analysed in the following steps of the SEA process. The event gathered up to 30 participants from the professional energy community, environmental authorities, academia and civil society.

Both events and the implementation of the pilot project on application of Strategic Environmental Assessment for Renewable Energy Use Strategy were funded by the European Commission through the EU four year Programme ‘Greening Economies in the European Neighborhood’ (EaP GREEN).