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In recent years, Montenegro and its capital city, Podgorica, have been committed to accelerate sustainable and smart urban development through a variety of ambitious national and regional and local measures, such as digitalization of public services, modernization of public transport, and to…
As one of the United Nations regional economic commissions, UNECE has a key role to play in helping countries with economies in transition to better integrate into the global economy. UNECE is at the forefront of setting international standards on cross-border procedures, identifying regulatory and…
For some time now, Uzbekistan has been engaged in various activities under the UNECE Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters (Aarhus Convention). An international round table entitled “Aarhus Convention: Effective…
For many people around the world, the work and achievements of the United Nations remain in the realms of grand summits of heads of state on pressing global issues, of diplomatic brokering of peace agreements, of urgent humanitarian interventions for people in the greatest need, and other high-…
The mandatory wearing of safety-belts in cars first introduced in Europe at the turn of the 1970s has saved millions of lives around the world in the past 50 years.    According to the World Health Organization, the use of safety-belts by occupants of vehicles in front seats reduces the risk of…
A UNECE working paper released today, Population and migration statistics in Armenia: current situation, future plans and ways to improve describes how Armenia is improving its statistics on population and migration by combining administrative data with sample surveys. The study reviews innovations…
While Uzbekistan has improved its environmental performance in line with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) related to water and sanitation (SDG 6) and forests and tree cover loss (SDG targets 15.1, 15.2, 15.3), significant challenges remain related to air quality (SDG 11.6), water resources…
Participants in the motor industry’s complex supply chains, regulators as well as investors seeking to invest sustainably are increasingly interested in considering the carbon footprint of vehicles over their entire lifetime - from material extraction and production to manufacturing, use and…
It is critical that construction industry’s general contractors, architects and governments find ways to innovate and incorporate minimum efficient standards and innovations, such as architectural upcycling and recycling, through proper and updated legislative frameworks and rules as well as…
Standards are in everything that surround us. Just the mobile phone in your pocket uses hundreds of standards, from the cellular network and the cable connectivity to physical elements such as the processing chips and the LED screen, not to mention security testing and the process design. We rely…
Governments, Mayors, leading architects, urbanists and experts will gather in San Marino on 3-6 October 2022 for the 83rd session of the UNECE Committee on Urban Development, Housing and Land Management. The session will support regional exchange of experiences and good practices to promote…
The third online meeting on the new Master Plan for Kharkiv on 28 May 2022 saw a group of local architects join the discussions led by the Norman Foster Foundation and the City Government of Kharkiv.  Mayor of Kharkiv Ihor Terekhov spoke of his vision to transform the city to become a great…
New multilateralism, focused on creating synergies between local, national, regional and global efforts, combined with practical, forward-looking solutions are needed to address the pressing challenges facing cities across the globe, including the coronavirus pandemic, rapid urbanization, and…
Cities have the power to accelerate the achievement of the 2030 Agenda Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) through their work at the local level. Examples of this will be presented and discussed at the H22 +50 Session (31 May 2022), and Dialogue of Eminent Experts on smart, sustainable, and…
COP26 was a positive step forward in the fight against climate change, but as the UN Secretary General pointed out in his comments: “it is not enough. We must accelerate climate action to keep alive the goal of limiting the global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees.” The compromise deal reflects the…
An exhibition of urban sketches by Architect Norman Foster is opening today at the Palais des Nations on the occasion of the UNECE Ministerial Meeting on Urban Development, Housing and Land Management (6-8 October).  The sketches present visions of city planning that incorporate concepts of…
UNECE’s Expert Forum for Producers and Users of Climate Change-related Statistics took place in Geneva and online from 31 August to 3 September, in the run-up to COP26 later this autumn. The annual UNECE expert forums bring together not only producers but also users of climate change-related…
The heads of national statistical offices of 59 countries and 24 international organizations are gathering this week in Geneva and around the globe for the 69th plenary session of the Conference of European Statisticians, the decision-making body for statistical matters in the UNECE region and…
A team of expert labour statisticians is to be convened by UNECE for the Conference of European Statisticians, to investigate how to reflect new ways of working in the employment figures we use every day. Over the past year the work-from-home orders and business closure rules issued by many…
The importance of statistical information to help us cope with disasters has never been clearer than over the past year. As the Covid-19 pandemic has gripped the world, numbers have become our bread and butter. Yet the pandemic has also highlighted the challenges and imperfections in many systems; …
Hydrogen is not a mere dangerous good. It is perhaps our best chance to attain carbon neutrality by 2050, was the conclusion of a brainstorming on carbon neutrality held at UNECE this week. More than 200 experts attended the online discussion that explored production, transport, storage and use of…
Hydrogen is an innovative solution to help achieve carbon neutrality and other climate targets. In 2019 and 2020 the key players from across the UNECE region came up with decarbonization strategies in which hydrogen is to play a pivotal role. Ukraine is deeply interested in developing…
A new working paper, Adapting household surveys to the situation of the pandemic, shows that statistical producers in countries in the UNECE region have moved fast to measure the effects of the pandemic on households, and to adapt data collection to crisis conditions; but they need support for…
As globalization increases the diversity of innovative ways of doing business around the world, economies become ever more interdependent. Multinational enterprise groups, or MNEs, have operations in several countries, so counting up their economic impacts entails looking across borders to gather…
Director General of Statistics Finland Marjo Bruun has chaired the Conference of European Statisticians (CES), UNECE’s statistical body, since 2016. As she retires from Statistics Finland at the end of this month, she reflects on how leading this international statistical work has broadened her…