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UNEP Division for Environmental
Information, Assessment and Early Warning
EARTHWATCH
COORDINATION
Briefing Note
Earthwatch Coordination, based in
Geneva, extends the mandate and activities of the Division of Environmental
Information, Assessment and Early Warning to the whole United Nations
system. It provides leadership and direction to the UN System-wide Earthwatch
established at the UN Conference on the Human Environment in Stockholm
in 1972. Its mission is to coordinate, harmonize and integrate observing,
assessment and reporting activities across the UN system in order to provide
environmental and appropriate socio-economic information for national
and international decision making on sustainable development and for early
warning of emerging problems requiring international action. Further information
on the organization of Earthwatch and its partnerships with some 50 parts
of the UN system can be found on the Earthwatch web site (http://www.unep.ch/earthw.html).
The activities
of Earthwatch Coordination include:
Maintaining an effective UN system-wide Earthwatch process through
inter-agency coordination, harmonization and integration of environmental
observations, assessments and reporting through the annual Earthwatch
Working Party, the Earthwatch
web site, electronic communications with focal points, and other
inter-agency activities.
As Earthwatch Task Manager, and in collaboration with the UN
Division for Sustainable Development, follow up the implementation of
Agenda 21 Chapter 40: Information for Decision-making,
which is the cross-cutting theme for the Commission for Sustainable
Development in 2001.
Providing strategic direction, and supporting the implementation
of the UNEP
Environmental Observing and Assessment Strategy through a UN
Foundation/UN Fund for International Partnerships project developed
and launched through Earthwatch Coordination.
Supporting the Global
Environment Outlook (GEO) process and other UNEP state-of-the-environment
reporting through direct inputs, capacity-building in GEO collaborating
centres, and organizing participation by the UN system in GEO.
Providing UNEP leadership in the Integrated Global
Observing Strategy (IGOS) Partnership between space agencies,
UN agencies, global research programmes and observing systems, and in
the Global Observing Systems (GCOS, GOOS,
GTOS) and their Sponsors Group:
- contributing to secretariat services
for the IGOS Partnership,
- maintaining the IGOS web pages (http://www.igospartners.org/),
and
- participating as possible in the intergovernmental
meetings and steering committees of the G3OS.
Strengthening collaboration and coordination with the scientific
community:
- reviewing international
scientific advisory processes for environment and sustainable development,
and
- supervising development by the Scientific
Committee on Problems of the Environment (SCOPE) of a strategic cooperative
network for early warning.
Stimulating the development of indicators
of environment and sustainable development, including:
- collaboration with the UN Division for
Sustainable Development in implementing the Commission on Sustainable
Development work programme
on indicators of sustainable development;
- participation in the Consultative
Group on Sustainable Development Indicators;
- cooperation with targeted programmes
of other agencies to develop sectoral indicators.
Providing UNEP guidance and supporting information resources for assessment
and action on Small Island Developing States (SIDS), coral
reefs, and marine environmental and international waters assessments:
- documentation centre and on-line
bibliography,
- UNEP
islands web page (http://www.unep.ch/islands.html).
- on-line Island
Directory of over 2000 islands
- training materials on island environmental
management
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