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Serbia

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Economic overview  

UN Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework (2021-2025)    

UNECE is a signatory of the UN Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework and contributes in particular to the following strategic priorities:  

  • Strategic priority 1. Harness the full potential of a green, sustainable and inclusive economy that increases opportunities for all and manages risks.  

  • Strategic priority 2. Place well-being, social equity and the human potential at the heart of systems, policies and practices.  

  • Strategic priority 3. Build trust and mutual accountability through the rule of law, rights and duties agenda  

UNECE works in close cooperation with the Resident Coordinator and the United Nations Country Team.  

    

Key highlights  

 Energy 

UNECE is supporting the implementation of UNFC to make the most of the demand for Critical Raw Materials, such as lithium, nickel, rare earth elements and cobalt, which are needed for the energy transition in Southeast Europe, including in Serbia. 

Serbia is a beneficiary of several projects on increasing the use of natural gas in transport, as well as “Enhancing understanding of the implications and opportunities of moving to carbon neutrality in the UNECE region across the power and energy intensive industries by 2050” (SDG7, SDG12 and SDG13). 

A study to help design and implement a programme for an efficient, safe, and environmentally conscious mine closure was published in 2023 (SDG7 and SDG13). 

Environment  

Serbia is a Party to UNECE’s 5 environmental conventions and several of their protocols.   

Serbia is sharing its results and achievements in improving access to water and sanitation under the Protocol on Water and Health with Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. 

In the Drina River Basin, shared by Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Montenegro, UNECE supports riparian countries in working together across borders to jointly address water and energy challenges for effective climate action (SDG6, SDG7, SDG13).  

The country is invited to ratify the Air Convention’s Protocol to Abate Acidification, Eutrophication and Ground-level Ozone (Gothenburg Protocol).  

Forests 

With 31.13% of land covered by forests, Serbia is considered a medium forest cover country. Scaling up forest landscape restoration is needed to avoid further fragmentation of forests and an additional decline in forest vitality. UNECE is focused on supporting national monitoring, assessment and reporting on forests and sustainable forest management and forest information system, as well as strengthening sustainable urban and peri urban forestry (SDG12, SDG13 and SDG15).   

Gender equality 

UNECE has organized several capacity-building events to provide support in strengthening the capacity of the Government and ministerial staff in gender mainstreaming and developing a package of relevant gender mainstreaming tools for environmental policies.  

The standards body of Serbia has signed the Declaration on Gender-Responsive Standards and Standards Development (SDG5, SDG9 and SDG12).  

Statistics  

Serbia is leading an informal group of Balkan countries that jointly develops new statistical production tools. This group is gradually expanding to include countries in the Caucasus and possibly also Uzbekistan, a good example of “South-South” collaboration (SDG11). 

Trade 

Serbia is a pilot country of the UNECE technical assistance activities in the circular economy under the UNDA funded project “Accelerating the transition to a circular economy in the UNECE region” (2021-2024). 

A first National Policy Dialogue on the Circular Economy in the Agri-Food Sector was held in 2022. 

UNECE intends to launch a full-fledged sub-regional level publication on innovation governance, the Innovation Policy Outlook (IPO) for the Western Balkans. 

Serbian Customs participate in the UNECE-led trade facilitation, Single Window and data exchange activities to create a link between the national Single Window projects in the Western Balkan countries to the UNECE standards, work in the World Bank, the European Commission and CEFTA on these issues (SDG8, SDG9, SDG12). 

Transport 

Serbia has acceded to 42 UN legal instruments on inland transport. 

Under a project financed by the UNRSF, Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina are in the process of adopting road safety strategies and actions plans that rely on in-depth analysis of road crashes (SDG3 and SDG11). 

The country is invited to accede to the 2008 Additional Protocol to the CMR concerning the Electronic Consignment Note (e-CMR) to receive benefits from the digitalized document under the CMR Convention.  

Urban development 

A pilot project and capacity building activities could be developed on the topics of affordable housing and legalization of informal settlements to promote access to decent, adequate, affordable and heathy housing for all through the implementation of The Geneva UN Charter on Sustainable Housing principles.  

 

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