A three-day event is scheduled to take place simultaneously in Kyiv and Tbilisi, 17-19 April 2007, devoted to debating EECCA regional SCP issues. The first two days in each city will focus on Eastern Europe and South Caucasus issues, respectively, while Day 3 will feature a distant video/satellite link between Kyiv and Tbilisi, integrating Amersterdam, Brussels, Copenhagen, Geneva and London.
This will reduce travel costs, particularly air travel (taking climate change into consideration), while allowing full participation by all interested parties. Setting best SCP practice, we intend to demonstrate that such an event is sustainable, efficient, economical and a model for future meetings of this nature.
In Tbilisi, this workshop will run as a coordinated follow-on to an ANPED/Environmental League Southern Caucasus sub-regional meeting "NGO Vision in Decision-Making of CSD-15 " (15-16 April), adding SCP as the cross-cutting issue.
The purpose of the workshop is to
(1) Evaluate national and sub-regional progress in Eastern Europe and South Caucasus on SCP policy development following Kiev-2003 Environment for Europe (EfE) decisions;
(2) Support the EcoForum position on SCP at the Belgrade 2007 Environment Ministers Conference;
(3) Establish an NGO forum to track UN Commission on Sustainable Development SCP cross-cutting issues to 2010 and beyond, thus bringing the EECCA countries into the international SCP framework (Marrakech Process); and
(4) Demonstrate the sustainability and cost-effectiveness of video-conferencing for international NGO and other conferences.
