The UN Asian and Pacific Training Centre for Information and Communication Technology for Development (APCICT), an ESCAP subsidiary, is co-organizing with national and subregional partners three training workshops as part of its Academy of ICT Essentials for Government Leaders Programme. In Indonesia the Third National Academy Workshop will be held from 30 June to 3 July for heads of 40 provincial and city government ICT agencies. In Samoa the Academy Workshop is being organized as a pre-event to the “Using ICT for Effective Disaster Management Pacific Forum 2009” on 6 July. The training will be conducted for policymakers and heads of department of various Samoan government ministries, as well as delegates of the Forum, by the Pacific Islands Applied Geoscience Commission (SOPAC) and Samoa’s Ministry of Communications. In Timor-Leste the first in a series of Academy workshops will take place in Dili from 7 to 10 July. APCICT, in partnership with the National Directorate for ICT, Ministry of Infrastructure and the Academy team at the University of Indonesia, is organizing this workshop for 50 high-level government officials.

The Expert Group Meeting on Facilitating Global and Regional Trade will be convened by the Trade and Investment Division of ESCAP from 14 to 15 July in Bangkok. The meeting will review trade and investment issues and policies in times of crisis, with the aim of promoting inclusive and sustainable development. Among the issues for discussion are the need and modalities for developing coherent and consistent national, regional and international trade and investment policies; the role of the multilateral trading system during and after the crisis and issues related to the Doha trade negotiations; and ways to enhance intraregional trade and investment, the role of regional trade agreements and the need for trade facilitation. The meeting will also review the role of national and regional policies and the private sector in business survival and development. The recommendations from the meeting will be published in the Asia-Pacific Trade and Investment Report 2009, which will form the background for discussions at the First Session of the Committee on Trade and Investment in November 2009.

The UN Asian and Pacific Centre for Transfer of Technology (APCTT), in collaboration with the Thailand Ministry of Science and Technology, is organizing an Expert Group Meeting on Supporting the Development of an Institutional Cooperation Mechanism to Promote Renewable Energy in Asia-Pacific from 20 to 21 July in Bangkok. The meeting is part of an initiative launched by APCTT, an ESCAP subsidiary, in April 2008 at the 64th Session of the ESCAP Commission to promote renewable energy technologies (RET) for energy security and sustainable development in the region. The initiative aims to develop an institutional cooperation mechanism to strengthen national renewable energy use capacities in the form of a network of countries to collect and disseminate RET information, share best practices, develop national capacities to plan and implement RET transfer projects, and promote research and development collaboration. The meeting will discuss modalities for establishing the proposed network, provide guidance to make it effective and review a website designed to collect and share RET information. Representatives from 15 Asian-Pacific countries are expected to attend.

ESCAP’s Information and Communications Technology and Disaster Risk Reduction Division is organizing an Expert Group Meeting on Regional Cooperation towards Building an Information Society in Asia and the Pacific, from 20 to 22 July at the United Nations Conference Centre in Bangkok. The meeting is a follow-up to the First Session of the Committee on Information and Communications Technology (CICT) held in November 2008 in Bangkok and at ESCAP’s recent 65th Commission Session. Experts from 18 countries and four subregional organizations – ASEAN, ECO, PIFS, and SAARC – are expected to attend. The main focus is to review regional progress towards implementing the Plan of Action adopted at the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) held in 2003 in Geneva. Besides discussing recommendations for action at the national, subregional and regional levels towards attaining the WSIS targets by 2015, the experts will examine the need to streamline implementation of the Regional Action Plan towards the Information Society in Asia and the Pacific. Representatives of APT, ITU and UNESCO will also be present.

The Thirteenth Session of the Intergovernmental Consultative Committee (ICC) on the Regional Space Applications Programme for Sustainable Development (RESAP) will be held from 20 to 22 July in Bangkok. Organized by ESCAP’s Information and Communications Technology and Disaster Risk Reduction Division and hosted by the Geo-Informatics and Space Technology Development Agency (GISTDA) of Thailand, the session will focus on generating guidance for its members and secretariat in promoting easy access to and effective use of space-based tools and applications for disaster reduction, climate change adaptation and other development priorities through RESAP’s regional cooperation network. An expert meeting will be organized with the ICC Session to advise on RESAP priority areas for the coming years, recommend regional cooperation modalities and discuss ways and means for the harmonized development of a regional disaster management support platform for space-based information sharing and analysis supported by relevant initiatives. All 24 RESAP members along with experts and representatives of various organizations are expected to attend the meeting.

ESCAP’s Macroeconomic Policy and Development Division will organize a regional workshop on ‘Strengthening the Response of the Global Financial Crisis in Asia-Pacific: the Role of Monetary, Fiscal and External Debt Policies’ from 27 to 30 July in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Hosted by the Bangladesh Bank, the workshop will be attended by high-level government officials from select Asia-Pacific countries and have the main objective of strengthening the capacity of policy makers to tackle challenges posed by the current global financial and economic crisis. The participants are expected to share national experiences and best practices in implementing macroeconomic policies and identify key areas of regional cooperation and coordination.