What’s Ahead @ ESCAP

ESCAP will be convening the Asia-Pacific High-level Intergovernmental Meeting on Assessment of Progress against Commitments in the Political Declaration on HIV/AIDS and the Millennium Development Goals from 6 to 8 February at the UN Conference Centre in Bangkok. The Meeting will bring together, for the first time, some 200 ministers and senior officials from justice, law enforcement, drug control, health and social protection as well as civil society across the Asia-Pacific region to consider legal and policy barriers that impede universal access to HIV prevention, treatment, care and support, and compromise the rights of people living with, and affected by, HIV. The Meeting will also consider actions to accelerate regional implementation of the internationally agreed commitments to halt and reverse the spread of HIV and AIDS in the region.

The Meeting is being held in pursuance of Commission resolution 66/10 of 19 May 2010 on the regional call for action to achieve universal access to HIV prevention, treatment, care and support in Asia and the Pacific. It is being organized in cooperation with the following seven United Nations entities, namely UNAIDS, UNDP, UNODC, UNICEF, UNFPA, UN Women and WHO.

This month, the Asian and Pacific Training Centre for Information and Communication Technology for Development (APCICT) will organize a series of events to launch its new Primer Series on ICTD for Youth. A part of APCICT’s “Turning Today’s Youth into Tomorrow’s Leaders Programme”, the Primer Series is designed to help educate youth on the use of information and communication technologies for socio-economic development (ICTD).

The official launch of the Primer Series will take place along with a 3-day Training of Trainers Workshop from 8 to 10 February in Baku, Azerbaijan for more than 25 university professors and trainers who will go on to deliver Primer content to youth within institutions of higher learning. Organized in partnership with Azerbaijan’s Qafqaz University, the Institute of Information Technology and other agencies, the workshop will also welcome participants from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. An online version of a Primer training module will concurrently be launched on the APCICT Virtual Academy, a distance learning platform.

From 27 to 29 February, APCICT and the University of Indonesia will organize a three-day Primer Series Training of Trainers Workshop in Jakarta, Indonesia for over 30 professors and trainers from universities throughout Indonesia, as well as two lecturers from the National University of Timor-Leste.

ESCAP’s Information and Communication Technology and Disaster Risk Reduction Division, in collaboration with the Statistics Division, will organize an Expert Group Meeting on Geo-reference Disaster Risk Management System in Asia-Pacific Region from 15 to 17 February at the UN Conference Centre, Bangkok. The meeting is expected to be attended by national government policy and decision makers and experts working in the area of geo-reference disaster risk reduction and management, and also experts from academia and international/ regional/ sub-regional organizations. The Meeting is expected to: (i) discuss and finalize the findings of the data needs and gaps assessment survey for geo-reference; (ii) discuss the establishment of an online network of regional and national policy/decision makers and experts on geo-referenced disaster risk reduction (DRR) and management, and impact assessment, taking into account existing initiatives and services provided by key partners in the region; (iii) discuss the development of standardized information system containing socio-economic statistics and geo-referenced information in support of DRR and preparedness, and (iv) the way forward. The Meeting is one of several activities of the UNDA project entitled “Improving disaster risk preparedness in the ESCAP region”.

ESCAP, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) will launch the report “Green Growth, Resources and Resilience: Environmental Sustainability in Asia and the Pacific” on 16 February at the Foreign Correspondents Club of Thailand in Bangkok. The report addresses key challenges facing governments in the Asia-Pacific region in promoting inclusive and sustainable development. It provides new insights into resource use trends and outlines key actions to bring economic growth in closer alignment with sustainable development objectives. Launched ahead of the UN Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio +20) to be held in Brazil in June this year, the report focuses on two main themes of Rio+20 — green economy and governance.

Senior officials, academics and representatives of civil society organizations from countries in South Asia will meet on 17 and 18 February in New Delhi to review hurdles to the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and to propose concrete policy options to accelerate progress in the subregion. The High-level Subregional Forum on Accelerating Achievement of the Millennium Development Goals in South Asia is being organized jointly by ESCAP, Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), as part of a series of activities under the regional partnership to accelerate MDG achievements by 2015, as part of a series of activities under the regional partnership to accelerate MDG achievements by 2015.

During the forum, the Regional MDG Report 2011-2012 will also be launched by ESCAP, ADB and UNDP.

The Second Session of the Committee on Environment and Development (CED) of ESCAP will be held from 22 to 24 February at the United Nations Conference Centre in Bangkok. The objectives of the CED are to review emerging and persistent issues in the field of environment and development, including the environmental sustainability of economic growth (green growth), energy security, water resources management, sustainable urban development and the progress made in implementing the outcomes of the Sixth Ministerial Conference on Environment and Development, held from 27 September to 2 October 2010 in Astana, Kazakhstan. In addition, the outcomes of the Regional Preparatory Meeting for the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (UNCSD) which was held in Seoul from 19 to 20 October 2011, and the outcomes of the Asia-Pacific Urban Forum held in Bangkok from 22 to 24 June 2011, will also be presented and discussed by ESCAP member countries.

For further detailed information and documents, please visit
http://www.unescap.org/esd/ced-2.asp.