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The push for a global agreement on climate change is increasing like the pace of a high-speed train. The next stop is the Paris Climate Conference in December, where 196 countries need to get on board the new climate agreement. To navigate climate action along those tracks, policy makers will…
Greece, Ireland, Italy, Portugal and Spain are some of the UNECE member countries that were most severely affected by the 2008 financial crisis. Amongst these countries, Greece, Ireland, Portugal and Spain all experienced modest employment growth in 2014 compared to the year before.Employment grew…
Governments often use Public-Private Partnerships (PPP) to conduct health projects without ensuring consistency with their overall health policy. This can lead to problems in policy implementation. For example, if a country initiates an expensive PPP hospitals programme, the risk is that…
For the first time, UNECE has launched a tablet version of its Annual Report, available to download from Google Play. It will also be available soon on the App store. The publication summarizes UNECE achievements in 2014 and presents the main challenges for 2015. From cleaner air to safer…
It is widely accepted that human activity has altered the balance of nutrients in ecosystems and has led to a nutrient overload. This has led to soil degradation, biodiversity loss and pollution of freshwaters. Major nutrients important for plant growth are carbon and nitrogen, among others.…
Thanks to the committed Aarhus Parties and stakeholders the Aarhus principles are guiding international decision-making on matters relating to the environment across the globe. A number of meetings related to the Aarhus Convention were held in Geneva from 15 to 19 June 2015. The Working Group of…
In Central Asia, increasing regional cooperation on trade is key to realizing the region’s potential as an integrated regional market and as a nexus connecting the European and Asian markets. In order to discuss and identify potential avenues for reinforcing regional cooperation, countries from…
In the Republic of Moldova some 309,000 people are either employers or own account workers (self-employed without employees). Only 120,000 of these (39 per cent) are women. Currently, this is the closest we can come to measuring the phenomenon of entrepreneurship, which in fact is a…
The Georgian Parliament hosted today a conference on ageing policy to support the integration of ageing-related issues in public policies and programmes. The debates, largely based on the findings of the Road Map for Mainstreaming Ageing in Georgia, developed in 2014 by UNECE in collaboration…
Several countries from outside the UNECE region expressed interest in acceding to the UNECE Convention on the Protection and Use of Transboundary Watercourses and International Lakes (Water Convention) at the tenth meeting of the Working Group on Integrated Water Resources Management, held on 24…
Customs-2-Customs (C2C) electronic exchange of information could greatly support risk assessment for transit operations and, ultimately, facilitate legitimate trade, improve and secure border crossing as well as reduce related costs. This was one of the findings of a workshop jointly organized…
So much has been said and written about Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), but now it is time to act. SDGs will be adopted by the General Assembly in September 2015 and the Statistical Community is expected to start measuring SDGs as of 2016. The universal character of these 17 goals means…
“Global retailers, brands and manufacturers who have outsourced their production have turned economics on its head”, says Professor Gary Gereffi, one of the experts that will gather in Geneva on 7-9 July for a meeting on Measuring Global Production hosted by UNECE . Leading statistical experts…
A study recently published in the magazine Environmental Science and Technology suggests that a strong global programme to mitigate fine particulate matter (PM2.5) or “respirable particles” — a major component of outdoor air pollution — could avoid as many as 750,000 deaths annually in the world…
Central Asian economies are taking practical steps to push for a more knowledge-based path towards economic development to overcome their remoteness from major markets and exposure to fluctuations in commodity prices.The Government of Tajikistan held discussions with domestic innovation…
Improving energy efficiency is supposed to be easy to do and contributes to energy security, a better environment, quality of life, and economic well-being for all. Energy efficiency is called “the first fuel” as it is the best way of getting more out of existing resources, supporting economic…
The UNECE Convention on the Protection and Use of Transboundary Watercourses and International Lakes (Water Convention) has been in force for almost 20 years. While it has strongly impacted cooperation on the ground in the ECE region and beyond, it has strangely not attracted much attention from…
Travelling – be it for work or holiday – and long distance commuting has become part of everyday life for many people. You might live in France but work in Switzerland, or your colleague may fly to Rome every week-end to visit the family. Cross-border commuting belts are growing in size and are…
How to use administrative data and household surveys to measure international migration? This was one of the topics discussed by some 30 expert from national statistical offices in CIS countries, national migration services, EU countries, and international organizations in Minsk, Belarus from 28…
Countries keep better records of individuals entering the country than of individuals who leave. This makes emigration difficult to measure. In order to mitigate this problem, UNECE launched the Migration Clearing House, a data exchange depository which uses data on out-migration flows from…
Sustainable development is high on the United Nations agenda this year. To stand up for sustainable development and environmental protection, UNECE is contributing to World Environment Day celebrations taking place in Geneva from 3 to 5 June 2015. World Environment Day, celebrated annually on 5…
Georgia is preparing draft legislation on environmental impact assessment (EIA) and strategic environmental assessment (SEA) in accordance with the UNECE Convention on Environmental Impact Assessment in a Transboundary Context (Espoo Convention), its Protocol on Strategic Environmental…
Emissions of air pollutants have been reduced considerably in the UNECE region over the past few decades as a result of integrated air pollution management strategies developed under the Convention on Long-range Transboundary Air Pollution (Air Convention). However, as evidenced by recent…
How can countries tap the potential of older people? How can governments identify areas in which older people’s participation in society is limited? What can they do to remove barriers so that people of all ages can be actively engaged in society?These are pertinent questions for all…
Countries in Eastern Europe, the Caucasus and Central Asia need to increase water-use efficiency in view of pressures on the subregion’s water resources, in particular from economic development and climate change. Opportunities and challenges to achieve this were at the centre of the debates…