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“What is measured becomes visible; what is visible can be monitored; and what is monitored can be improved”.These words were left ringing in the ears of more than 65 gender statistics experts last week as the final speaker at the UNECE gender statistics work session took the floor in Vilnius,…
Source: UNECE Statistical Database (www.unece.org/stats/data), Eurostat, CISSTAT and national statistics In 2015, in the United States gross domestic product (GDP) increased by 2.4 per cent compared to the previous year – the same growth rate as in 2014. In the European Union (EU), GDP…
The Eighth Environment for Europe Ministerial Conference will gather Ministers and high-level representatives of UNECE’s 56 member countries in Batumi, Georgia, from 8-10 June 2016. The main themes of the Conference will be: Greening the economy. This approach, which fosters a healthy…
It is commonly known that global exports exceed global imports. How is it possible? Is it due to the growing exports of goods to the moon? No, it is due to difficulties in capturing global production and trade flows.Businesses once largely confined their production activities to the national…
Recent humanitarian crises combined with continuing globalization have brought the topic of international migration to the forefront of news reports around the world. The effects of cross-border migration are wide ranging and affect both migrants themselves and many non-migrants. As a result,…
About half of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) have a direct focus on the environment and there is at least one target on environmental sustainability in each SDG. How the environmental community will work to achieve the SDGs will be the overarching theme of the second session of the…
A decade of efforts by UNECE and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) to support countries of Eastern Europe, the Caucasus and Central Asia to modernize the management of their water resources have paid off. Successes include the adoption of a water sector reform…
The development plans in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro and Serbia, the countries that share the Drina Basin, need to be assessed for their impact on the ecosystems but also across sectors, in particular energy, agriculture and water management. These plans include some 20 new hydropower…
We are all more or less familiar with the concept of inflation - rising prices that reduce our purchasing power. The consumer price index (CPI) is the most commonly used measure of consumer price inflation. It measures the average price change of goods and services purchased by households for…
Institutional reform in the water sector in Armenia will reach a new milestone in 2017 with the enactment of provisions on drinking water. As a result, a single water service operator will be chosen to supply drinking water for the entire country, instead of the five separate companies operating…
Most of us probably still remember the time when during a family car trip the hard-to-fold windshield-sized paper map was drawn out to determine which way to turn next, or when everyone in the back seat was instructed to keep their eyes open for the next gas station. Now, many of us are used to…
While emissions of key air pollutants have been reduced considerably 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), progress has been uneven across the UNECE region…
Experts from UNECE member States and the secretariat will be visiting Bulgaria from 11 to 21 April 2016 for a field mission in the framework of the third environmental performance review (EPR) of the country. The team will meet governmental officials and representatives of international…
Europeans currently eat large amounts of meat, dairy products and eggs, exceeding health recommendations for the consumption of saturated fat and red meat. In addition, livestock production in the EU is the driver of around 80% of the losses of nitrogen from agriculture. The nitrogen that is…
Cycling is a green and healthy mode of transport, since it has the potential to significantly improve health and reduce mortality due to inactivity and to reduce local air pollution caused by motorised traffic. Overall, it is a great way to connect people with their urban environment and to take…
Earlier this month in New York, countries from around the world expressed their appreciation for the work done by UNECE to improve official statistics for the measurement of climate change. Almost twenty countries spoke at the 47th session of the United Nations Statistical Commission, the global…
In Central Africa, most watercourses cross borders. There are 16 transboundary rivers, lakes or aquifers, among them the mighty Congo River — the second largest river in the world in terms of water flow after the Amazon. However, these shared rivers also bring a risk of conflict. For this reason…
The preparation of the 2016 assessment report highlighting the main achievements of and remaining challenges facing the Convention on Long-range Transboundary Air Pollution is nearing its final stages. The report summarizes current scientific knowledge on transboundary air pollution issues…
The percentage of women in parliament has increased across the UNECE region over the last ten years, bringing the average in UNECE member countries from 19% in 2005 to 25% in 2015. In 2015, women accounted for at least 10% of members in all national parliaments. In 2005, 9 countries were…
Air pollution is damaging ecosystems and has adverse effects on crops. In order to improve the understanding of these impacts, and notably that of ground-level ozone pollution on crops and other vegetation, the International Cooperative Programme on Effects of Air Pollution on Natural Vegetation…
Entrepreneurship is a source of innovation and productivity in the global economy. In the 20th century, economic development has relied on big businesses and mass production. Now, smaller firms and creative networks of experts provide knowledge-driven goods and services. In addition, the…
How to measure the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)? What implications will technological advancements have on the production of statistics? These are two of the topics that will be discussed by the statistical community next week in New York (8-11 March) at the 47th session of the United…
Effective public participation is the key precondition for transparent and accountable governance. It helps Governments to tackle inequality by ensuring that all persons, including those from the poorest segments of society and rural communities, are able to participate in decisions that impact…
Empowering people to participate in decisions that can affect their environment and health is of key importance to UNECE. To this end, the present publication consists of two separate, but closely linked sets of recommendations: (i) Maastricht Recommendations on Promoting Effective Public…
Air pollution has a wide variety of impacts, affecting human health, ecosystems and climate, both near the source and far away. Over the past 10 years the Task Force on Hemispheric Transport of Air Pollution under the Convention on Long-range Transboundary Air Pollution has worked with an…