14 May 2008: Planning for ICCM2 and Open Ended Legal and Technical WG on SAICM

I think you received my message below last week with regard to the planning for the ICCM2 and OELTWG.

After the message was sent, there was a request from the Secretariat, based on a proposal from one regional focal point and an e-mail consultation among the other regional focal points, to identify two more participants from each region in the telephone conference for the planning of the ICCM2 and OELTWG. The next telephone conference will take place on 19 May.

Due to the short time for identifying two more participants, and following suggestions from other regional focal points, I decided to ask Thailand and Iran, which already sit on the Executive Board for the SAICM Quick Start Programme, to consider their participation as additional participants. I am aware that these two countries will not be sufficient to represent all the subregions, since this region has, to my knowledge, six subregions (West Asia, Central Asia, South Asia, Southeast Asia, Northeast Asia and the Pacific). However, I also agree that having three representatives from each region would improve the country representation in the planning process.

I would appreciate hearing from you if you have any other views on this. Also, if you have any idea about how the regional representation should be in a longer term, I would appreciate hearing about it. Based on what I hear from you, I may come back to you with an idea for the planning process.

And also, as I wrote in my last message, I would appreciate hearing about views from any of you on the issues discussed at the last teleconference or any issues in the teleconference papers, to be conveyed to the next teleconference.

Best regards,
Esak

Eisaku Toda
Asia-Pacific Regional Focal Point for SAICM
E-mail:saicm@iges.or.jp