Description
The UNEP Regional Office for Europe (UNEP/ROE) facilitates the implementation of UNEP's (United Nations Environment Programme) agenda in Europe. The office is located at the International Environment House (IEH) in Geneva, with liaison offices in Brussels, Moscow and Vienna: the first two maintain contacts with the European Union and Russia, while the third serves as the Interim Secretariat of the Carpathian Convention.
The main activities of UNEP/ROE include the support of policy dialogue in the representation of UNEP and the mitigation of security risks through cooperation with the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and the UN Development Programme (UNDP) assessing environmental security threats. These organisations and others work together in the Environment and Security (ENVSEC) initiative.
UNEP/ROE is active in promoting sustainable consumption, protecting biodiversity (the Pan-European Biological and Landscape Diversity Strategy was launched in 1994) and promoting enforcement and compliance with environmental law and MEAs. In particular, UNEP/ROE focuses on four conventions: the Bucharest Convention (the Black Sea), the Framework Convention for the Protection of the Marine Environment of the Caspian Sea (Teheran Convention), the Framework Convention on the Protection and Sustainable Development of the Carpathians (Carpathian Convention) and partly the Aarhus Convention.
UNEP/ROE also organises outreach activities to national civil society organisations through its thirty-one National Committees. UNEP's TUNZA network organises youth, children and environment activities; the publication of the TUNZA magazine is coordinated by UNEP/ROE.
The UNEP/ROE provides training in cooperation with the with the University of Geneva and the UN Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR): the Geneva Programme in Environmental Diplomacy is a one-week course and its curriculum focuses on the skills necessary for participating in global environmental negotiations.
Categories
International / Intergovernmental Organisation
United Nations System
