South Africa hosted the 12th session of the African Ministerial Conference on the Environment (AMCEN), 7-12 June 2008 and will also be taking the helm of AMCEN for the next two years. The official opening ceremony for AMCEN took place on 10 June 2008 to which FARA participating. View of the Sandton Convention Centre,
venue of AMCEN-12
The first Extraordinary Meeting of the Contracting Parties to the Convention for Cooperation in the Protection and Development of the Marine and Coastal Environment of the West and Central African Region will also run parallel to AMCEN from 9-10 June 2008.
Another Associated meeting is the Special Conference of Parties of the Abidjan Convention COP 9, on 9 -10 June 2008.
The Expert Group met in plenary to hear presentations and discuss a number of items, including: a report by the AMCEN Secretariat; implementation of the Action Plan for the Environment Initiative of the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD); reports from the African Union Commission (AUC) and NEPAD; AMCEN’s draft indicative work programme for the biennium 2009-2010; and the forthcoming launch of Africa: Atlas of Our Changing Environment.
Participants during Working Group I (WGI): Climate Change
The Expert Group then convened in three working groups to prepare draft decisions for the ministerial segment on climate change, AMCEN’s Work Programme for the 2009-2010 Biennium, and policy-related matters. It forwarded to the ministerial segment the draft Johannesburg Declaration on the Environment for Development (the Johannesburg declaration), the draft indicative work programme for the biennium 2009-2010, and draft decisions on the following matters:
- implementation of the Action Plan of the Environment Initiative of NEPAD; status and use of the general trust fund; chemicals management;
- environmental education;
- Africa Environment Day;
- the Africa Environment Outlook process and the Africa Environment Information Network;
- Africa’s preparations for developing a common negotiating position on a comprehensive international climate change regime beyond 2012;
- and the comprehensive framework of African climate change programmes, containing an indicative list of Africa’s climate change decisions and an indicative conceptual outline of a comprehensive framework for African climate change programmes.
UNEP Resources
- Ministerial Agenda
- Experts Agenda
- Report of the Bureau of the AMCEN on the work of its 22nd meeting
- Status report on the implementation of the Action Plan for the NEPAD environment initiative - June 2006–May 2008
- Status of the general trust fund of AMCEN
- Status of implementation of the decisions taken by the 11th session of AMCEN
- History of AMCEN
- Abidjan Special COP Session
IISD RS Resources
- African Regional Coverage
- Linkages Update - Bi-weekly international environment and sustainable development news
