The First Session of the ESCAP Committee on Environment and Development will be convened from 2 to 4 December at the United Nations Conference Centre in Bangkok. The meeting will bring participants from across the Asia-Pacific region to discuss, among other issues, development through Green Growth - a regional strategy which brings together economic growth and environmental sustainability and fosters socially inclusive and sustainable development. At the opening on 2 December, a keynote address will be delivered by Mr. Nurgali Sadvakasovich Ashimov, the Minister of Environment of Kazakhstan, followed by a panel discussion on “Key Challenges, Opportunities and the Way Forward in the Area of Environment and Development.” The Panel will consist of Professor Ryokichi Hirono, credited with establishing the Asian Development Bank; Ms. Syeda Rizwana Hasan, lawyer and Chief Executive Director, Bangladesh Environmental Lawyers Association (BELA); Ms. Akansha Chaurey, Director, Decentralised Energy Solutions of the Energy and Resources Institute, India; and Ms. Mary Jane Ortega, former Mayor of San Fernando La Reunion City in the Philippines and Secretary General of City Net - a network committed to helping local authorities improve the lives of citizens and create urban sustainability. On 4 December, a side event called “Bazaar of Ideas: Applying the Green Growth approach for basic service delivery and poverty reduction” will be organized. The Bazaar provides a platform for member states and development partners to showcase concrete examples of applying Green Growth to basic service delivery and poverty reduction in the form of innovative ideas, practices, approaches or policies.

ESCAP’s Statistics Division, in collaboration with the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) and the Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA), is organizing a Workshop on Interregional Cooperation on the Measurement of Informal Sector and Informal Employment from 3 to 4 December at the United Nations Conference Centre in Bangkok. It will be a concluding workshop for a project which piloted the "1-2" Survey approach, in selected countries, as a data collection strategy for informal sector and informal employment statistics. The workshop will bring together project country teams from Mongolia, Palestine, the Philippines, Saint Lucia and Sri Lanka as well as statistics development partners, will also provide a forum to begin the evaluation process for the project including an assessment at the relevance, effectiveness, and sustainability of the project results and its implementation strategy; consolidation of lessons learned; and identification of areas and modalities for further work at sub-regional, regional and inter-regional levels.

The Asian and Pacific Training Centre for Information and Communication Technology for Development (APCICT), a regional institute of ESCAP, will organize a Project Inception Workshop to plan the implementation of an 18-month project entitled “Improving Public Services through Information and Communication Technology (ICT)” from 7 to 11 December in Seoul, Republic of Korea. This project is a collaboration between APCICT, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the National Information Society Agency (NIA) of the Republic of Korea. The project focuses on enhancing the capacity of the governments of Mongolia, the Philippines and Viet Nam in the effective use of ICTs for national and sector development. On 7-18 December 2009, in Copenhagen, APCICT will showcase its work and accomplishments at the iSeeT@theClimateChangeKiosk at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Fifteenth Session of the Conference of the Parties (COP 15). For more information please visit http://www.unapcict.org.

ESCAP’s Statistics Division, in collaboration with international and regional partners, is organizing a regional workshop, Count Us In: Towards Better disability measurement and statistics in Asia and the Pacific, from 8 to 10 December at the United Nations Conference Centre in Bangkok. The main purpose of the workshop is to disseminate the results of a project “Improvement of Disability Measurement and Statistics in Support of the Biwako Millennium Framework and Regional Census Programme”. The project’s central objective was to help establish international standards for the collection of disability data through surveys. To this end, ESCAP together with partner established the Washington Group on Disability Statistics and developed an extended question set for survey-based data collection on disability. The workshop will present the findings from recently conducted country test surveys. It will also provide an opportunity for participants to share and discuss ongoing initiatives to improve disability measurement in the Asia-Pacific region.

ESCAP's Information and Communications Technology and Disaster Risk Reduction Division is organizing a Regional Workshop on Knowledge-hubs and Networks - Next Step from 10 to 11 December in Bangkok. The Workshop is part of an ongoing Project entitled “Knowledge networks through ICT access points for disadvantaged communities”. The Workshop will review the outcomes of the activities so far and design future strategies for sustainable knowledge-hubs and networks for Asia and the Pacific. It will also assess the role of knowledge-hubs and networks in meeting internationally agreed development goals including the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and the goals and targets agreed at the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS). More specifically, the meeting will attempt to assess : (i) tangible benefits to rural communities from knowledge sharing and networking; (ii) progress of the transformation from community access points to knowledge hubs and new services offered; (iii) role of regional networks in value-added services to communities; (iv) involvement of the poor and disadvantaged groups (including women) in accessing benefits from knowledge hubs/ networks; (v) effective resource mobilization for sustainable knowledge hubs/networks; (vi) role of private-public partnership and the community in sustainability of knowledge hubs/ networks; and (vii) challenges in the process of establishing knowledge hubs/ networks.

Meeting of Experts on Empowering the Rural Area through Community e-Centres
ESCAP, jointly with the Asian Development Bank (ADB), is organizing a Meeting of Experts on Empowering the Rural Area through Community e-Centres from 14 to 15 December in Bangkok. The meeting will review the implementation of a project which is being executed by ADB and ESCAP under the South Asia Subregional Economic Cooperation (SASEC) programme. This project, supported by the Japan Fund for Information and Communication Technology, aims at empowering communities and improving the quality of life in rural areas in the participating countries (Bangladesh, Bhutan, India and Nepal) through increased accessibility of information and communication technology (ICT) by establishing community e-centres (CeCs). The meeting will provide an opportunity for participants to exchange views on possible future follow-up activities to make the CeCs sustainable after the completion of the project, through possible expansion of work areas, introduction of new technologies, and incorporation of CeC development into the national ICT and development policies. The meeting will gather experts from the four SASEC participating countries, and ICT-related ministries and organizations involved with ICT strategy and policy and telecentre development projects in other countries of Asia and the Pacific region. Representatives of international/regional organizations will also attend the meeting to contribute to the exchange of experiences and good practices on CeC.

Asia-Pacific Trade Agreement to Hold Ministerial Council Meeting in Seoul
The Third Session of the Ministerial Council of the Asia-Pacific Trade Agreement (APTA) will be organized by ESCAP on 15 December in Seoul, Republic of Korea. The Council will be presided over by Mr. Yoon Jeung-Hyun, Minister of Strategy and Finance, the Republic of Korea. Over 40 delegates from the six APTA Participating States (Bangladesh, China, India, the Republic of Korea, Lao PDR and Sri Lanka) are expected to attend the meeting. The Ministers will adopt the results of the Fourth Round of Tariff Negotiations under APTA and sign two new Framework Agreements, on Trade Facilitation and Investment. The Ministers are also expected to formally initiate the accession process for Mongolia to become a member of APTA.