Dear National Focal Points of the Asia-Pacific countries,
I am happy to write to you about the co-ordination of travel funding for the participation in the meeting of the Open-ended Legal and Technical Working Group for the Strategic Approach to International Chemicals Management (SAICM), to be held in Rome on 21-24 October 2008.
I would like to refer to the letter addressed to the SAICM National Focal Points, or to the Permanent Representatives in Geneva in cases where National Focal Points have not been established, from Mr. Per M. Bakken, Head of the Chemicals Branch, Division of Technology, Industry and Economics, United Nations Environment Programme about the aforementioned meeting. A generic letter can be found on the SAICM Website,
www.saicm.org.
That letter indicates that a limited number of Governments of developing countries or countries with economies in transition from each region may each nominate one person to receive financial support for travel and daily subsistence in order to participate in the meeting, and that the identification of Governments from each region to receive travel funding will be coordinated by SAICM regional focal points in consultation with national focal points.
In the absence of established procedures for making decision regarding SAICM within this region, the identification of Governments to receive travel funding is somewhat challenging. As a first step, I would like to submit to you my proposal for a rule and a procedure for making this identification, and invite your comments and inputs.
There is still uncertainty about the exact number of funded participants per region, but the Secretariat suggested that 15 countries out of 53 eligible countries may be able to receive funding. On this assumption, I firstly propose that the two countries on the Executive Board for the Quick Start Programme (QSP), namely Iran and Thailand, be included in the list of recipient governments. This is due to the fact that financial issues including the QSP may be one of the possible major issues for the meeting. Secondly, I propose that one country in the advisory group on the modality for reporting on SAICM implementation, namely Sri Lanka, be included in the list. This is also because the reporting of SAICM implementation may be one of the possible major issues for discussion at the meeting. Please note that the other of the two representatives of the advisory group, the Republic of Korea is an OECD member country and thus not eligible for travel funding.
Thirdly, I propose to allocate the remaining 12 places to subregions (note: There is no official definition of subregions. The following division of countries to 6 subregions is based on the suggestion from the SAICM Secretariat) in roughly the following way:
2 from 6 countries in Central Asia (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan)
1 from 2 countries in North Asia (China, Democratic People's Republic of Korea)
3 from 14 countries in Pacific Islands (Cook Islands, Fiji, Marshall Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Kiribati, Nauru, Niue, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu, Vanuatu)
2 from 7 countries in South Asia (Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan: note that Sri Lanka is already included)
2 from 10 countries in Southeast Asia (Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao People's Democratic Republic, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Timor-Leste, Viet Nam: note that Thailand is already included)
2 from 11 countries in West Asia (Bahrain, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syrian Arab Republic, United Arab Emirates, Yemen: note that Iran is already included)
Fourthly, I would invite proposals from all of you about the way for identifying the governments to receive funding. Such proposal may be a self-nomination to represent the region, subregion or any other group of countries, or nomination of another government to represent a group of countries, or joint proposal by a group of countries. I would like to remind you that at the Asia Pacific Regional Meeting on SAICM held in May 2007 in Bangkok we agreed that Nauru and Qatar volunteered to assist the regional focal point by acting as a bridge with a certain group of countries. Therefore I would expect these two countries to volunteer to play a coordinating role within the subregions that they belong to.
Fifthly, I will put together all the responses I receive, discuss with the other two members of the "Friends of the Secretariat" (namely Iran and Thailand), and make you a proposal for the list of governments to receive travel funding.
I would welcome your comments on this proposed rule and procedure. Taking this opportunity, I would also wish to invite your comment on one proposal made by a country to save the cost for the meeting by limiting the meeting to English only, with no translation service to the other five UN languages. I am already aware of a comment earlier made by one country that Arabic should be included in the meeting language, but I further invite your comments.
Therefore, in conclusion, I would like to invite your comments on the following:
(1) the procedures for identifying recipient governments described above;
(2) any proposal for subregional representation, e.g. self-nomination, nomination of other governments, joint proposal, etc; and
(3) whether the meeting should be held in English only or in six UN languages.
Give that the governments have been invited to register participants by 31 August, I would invite you to send me your comments by Monday 25 August. In the meantime, I would like to remind you that if you wish to register a participants you have to do so by 31 August whether or not we can decide on the list of recipient countries.
I look forward to receiving your responses by 25 August.
Best regards,
Esak
Eisaku Toda
Asia-Pacific Regional Focal Point for SAICM
E-mail:
saicm@iges.or.jp
