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Kyrgyzstan is a landlocked transition economy, like other Central Asian countries. According to the World Bank’s 2018 Doing Business report, the cost for documentary, domestic transport and border formalities for one export shipment is USD 590. Reductions in time and cost can contribute to…
Efficient production and supply of energy and raw material resources are vital to attaining the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and its 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Making resource development activities sustainable has emerged as a critical challenge. While the performance…
Many women-owned small businesses in Kyrgyzstan specialize in traditional crafts and ensure that know-how that has been passed on for generations – in particular in the textile and clothing industry – continues to be enjoyed by locals, tourists, and offered on international markets.For women…
In April 2018, the Eurasian Economic Commission adopted a decision requesting its members to use a risk-based approach for enforcement activities. Efforts towards effective risk management are particularly important in a country like Kyrgyzstan. The 2017 World Risk Report ranks Kyrgyzstan as…
Next year will mark the 25th anniversary of the ground-breaking International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) held in Cairo in 1994, and of its Programme of Action. In preparation for this anniversary, the UNECE Regional Conference on Enabling Choices: Population Dynamics and…
Who would have thought that heating with wood, a renewable fuel, is not as sustainable as we all thought? Whether heating with wood is a necessity, an alternative to another heating system or just a nice extra to create a cosy atmosphere in our homes, the consequences are the same: smoke that is…
Improving energy efficiency can bring multiple economic, social and environmental benefits and is widely viewed as one of the most effective ways to accelerate progress towards the objectives of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Paris Agreement. Investments in energy efficiency…
Severe accidents remind us time and time again of the need to invest in their prevention, and to mitigate their consequences, which can be far-reaching and transboundary. The cyanide spill in Baia Mare, Romania in 2000 demonstrated the devastating effects that an accident at a mining company can…
E-commerce has become a game changer in the international trade arena. Cross-border e-commerce is estimated to reach 1 trillion US dollars in 2020; for the top 10 e-commerce markets, it accounts for 34% of the gross domestic product.Cross-border e-commerce trade has flourished in China in recent…
A critical challenge to overcome in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is the lack of women - top to bottom - in business: this is well documented (according to a FTSE 100 report on UK public companies, the number of male CEOs named ‘David’ is larger than the number of women CEOs…
In the UNECE region, buildings are responsible for approximately one third of total energy consumption and account for almost 40 percent of CO2 emissions from combustion. Standards are an effective instrument for addressing energy efficiency in buildings and supporting the achievements of the…
West Africa is rich in transboundary waters with 25 transboundary river basins. The Comoé, Bia and Tanoé river basins are among the main basins that have so far not had a joint management mechanism. The combination of higher water demand from population growth as well as the projected new water…
Can low-cost sensors help us gather more data from many more locations, rendering air pollution monitoring more precise and inexpensive at the same time? Can they help us determine our own exposure to bad air quality? A lot of questions have arisen around the topic of low-cost air quality…
We cannot achieve what we cannot measure. The 2030 Agenda calls for participation of all United Nations Member States in providing national statistics to measure progress against seventeen sustainable development goals (SDGs). The ambition, scope and breadth of the 2030 Agenda is unparalleled in…
For the second time under the UNECE/FAO project “Accountability Systems for Sustainable Forest Management in the Caucasus and Central Asia”, Kyrgyz stakeholders met to advance their national criteria and indicator set for sustainable forest monitoring. This exercise is especially important as…
Kazakhstan wants renewable energy (RE) to reach 50% of its energy mix by 2050, with intermediate targets of 3% (or new 2,000 MW investment) by 2020 and 10% by 2030. Mr. Kanat Bozumbayev, Minister of Energy of Kazakhstan, pointed out yesterday that one of the main instruments to attract the…
Understanding how pollutant emissions will evolve in the future is essential for designing effective policies today. Under the UNECE Convention on Long-range Transboundary Air Pollution, the Task Force on Emission Inventories and Projections (TFEIP) supports Parties in the reporting of official…
In 1941, Sir Winston Churchill was troubled by the “utmost confusion caused when people argue on different figures”. He gave official statistics the task to produce an “agreed body of information” to avoid such confusion. This task is still valid today as people need to be able to distinguish…
Do you know where your clothes come from? And how are they made? When you buy your clothes, are you looking for this type of information, but without much success?The textile industry is a complex one, with value chains stretching around the globe. We all know that the bulk of the clothing and…
UNECE is actively supporting the trading community to gain the maximum benefits from the e-trade revolution. Through its participation in the UNCTAD e-Commerce week 2018 from 16-20 April, UNECE highlighted that enabling digital technologies for greater e-trade requires a cohesive approach by…
How can international organizations ensure that their rule-making activities are fit for purpose for Agenda 2030 for sustainable development? How can they make their norms and standards more effective, and their development more inclusive? What more can international organizations do to promote…
How to align resource management to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development with due consideration to socio-economic, environmental and technological aspects? Emphasis needs to be on reducing the carbon and environmental footprints of the resource sectors through technological interventions…
The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are creating many challenges for official statistics. One of the most important ones is how to create and maintain the new types of strategic partnerships that are needed to provide statistics for the SDGs. Leaders from the world of official statistics…
Globally, more people live in urban areas than in rural areas, with 54 per cent of the world’s population residing in urban areas in 2014. In 1950, 30 per cent of the world’s population was urban, and by 2050, 66 per cent of the world’s population is projected to be urban. 73 per cent of the…
The “Phillips curve” is an economic model which suggests that decreasing unemployment in an economy corresponds to higher rates of wage rises.The above graph shows the so-called Phillips curve for selected UNECE member States between 2016 and 2017. The curve displays the annual change…