United Nations Environment Programme

The Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) is pleased to invite governments, intergovernmental organizations, non-governmental organizations and the scientific community to provide their views on strengthening the scientific base of UNEP by improving its ability to monitor and assess global environmental change.

GC/GMEF Decision GC.23/1.II, paragraph 9, of February 2005 requested the Executive Director"to update his proposal for an “Environment Watch” framework and.........to submit that update to Governments, for their views, so as to enable submission of a report to the Governing Council at its ninth special session”.

The concept paper on Environment Watch has been updated and is being sent under a covering letter from the Executive Director to all ministers responsible for the environment. The paper is accompanied by a Situation Analysis and Needs Assessment Questionnaire which aims to collect information on the current state of legal, institutional and other mechanisms related to keeping the environment under review in countries and to identify the gaps that exist where capacity building interventions would be needed. This assessment is being carried out within the framework of the Bali Strategic Plan and Governments have been advised to conduct a multi-stakeholder consultation with other national-level environmental institutions that may have a role to play in the development of Environment Watch. Both documents and the covering letter are available in all six official UN languages and ministers will receive the documentation in their preferred language. The documentation has been sent by e-mail and on diskette by courier service.

As the second round of consultations has to be broad-based and reach out to other institutions and partners, including non-governmental organisations, scientific institutions, intergovernmental organisations, regional organisations and UN agencies, a separate covering letter (in English only) from the Executive Director will address this constituency and they will only receive the concept paper on Environment Watch for their review and comment.

The Environment Watch paper is accompanied by a Situation Analysis and Needs Assessment Questionnaire which aims to collect information on the current state of legal, institutional and other mechanisms related to keeping the environment under review in countries and to identify the gaps that exist where capacity building interventions would be needed. This assessment is being carried out within the framework of the Bali Strategic Plan and Governments are advised to conduct a multi-stakeholder consultation with other national-level environmental institutions that may have a role to play in the development of Environment Watch. Both documents and the covering letter are available in all six official UN languages and Governments will receive the documentation in their preferred language. The documentation is being sent by e-mail and on diskette by courier service.

Governments and other institutions are kindly requested to provide their comments to the updated proposal on Environment Watch as mandated by decision GC.23/1.II, paragraph 9, of February 2005. These comments are requested by 15 September 2005 in order to facilitate the preparation of a report to the ninth Special Session in Dubai, 7-9 February 2006.