Environmental indicators are a key tool for environmental assessment, reporting and policymaking. The Sixth Ministerial Conference “Environment for Europe” (Belgrade, 2007) endorsed the UNECE Recommendations on environmental indicators and indicator-based assessments and invited the countries of Eastern Europe, Caucasus and Central Asia, South-Eastern Europe and other interested countries to implement the Guidelines for the Application of Environmental Indicators prepared by the Working Group on Environmental Monitoring and Assessment in close cooperation with the European Environment Agency and other international organizations.
To promote the implementation of these recommendations, a first joint meeting was organized by the United Nations Statistics Division (UNSD) and UNECE.
The joint meeting has the following objectives:
- Discuss priorities and modalities of cooperation between environmental experts and statisticians in 2009-2010
- Review in detail selected indicators covered by the Guidelines for the Application of Environmental Indicators
- Exchange information on international developments related to environmental indicators
- Initiate discussions on modern presentation formats and tools for effective dissemination of environmental indicators