1. Aarhus Clearinghouse Capacity Building
Michael Stanley-Jones
Environmental Information Management Officer
Aarhus Convention Secretariat
Sixth Meeting of the Working Group of the Parties
5-7 April 2006

2. Capacity building for implementation of the Aarhus Convention
Aim: to coordinate capacity building activities
How: by sharing information and by cooperation
Challenge: timely and efficient sharing of information on past, on-going and future capacity building activities
A solution: develop a framework to share capacity building information, i.e. through the Aarhus Clearinghouse.
Other solutions?

3. Framework for integrating capacity building into the Clearinghouse
Access to Information
Public Participation
Access to Justice
PRTR
GMO
Electronic tools
Strategic Decision-making
Convention Compliance
Legislation
Policy
Projects
Procedures
Research
Government
NGOs
IGO
Academia
Regions
Sub-regions
Countries
Capacity Building:
Info and training materials
Projects
Events
Experts
Needs
Funding Opportunities
Build a Query
Query
Processing the query
Result output

4. Capacity-building needs identified through reporting and other sources
Aarhus Convention
implementation
Reporting,
info sources
(e.g. NIRs, TAI, UNITAR)
Opportunities and
activities for
building capacity
Capacity building
needs identification
Assessment of
implementation

6. Biodiversity Convention

7. Capacity-Building Projects Database
Includes information on various capacity-building projects / initiatives
Each record contains basic information about each project/initiative, including:
status and location
lead organization(s) and contacts
objectives and activities
lessons learned
brief description of the project
web links for detailed information

8. Capacity-Building Opportunities Database
Includes information on short-term
(or one-off) capacity building opportunities,
such as:
funding grants
scholarships and fellowships
technical assistance
internships/ apprenticeships
study tours
partnerships
discussion forums

9. Country (or Subregional) Needs and Priorities Database
Includes:
national and sub-regional
capacity-building needs and priorities
required to implement the instrument
that have been identified and categorized
in line with the elements of the
capacity-building action plan

10. Further developments
Develop a user-friendly uploading mechanism, a database and a GUI integrating the capacity building components into the Clearinghouse
Identify and agree on the way/mechanism for the partners to provide information
Provide access (login and username) to the partners to enable the submission of available information on capacity building

11. Suggested Subregions
Central Asia
Caucusas
Eastern Europe
South-eastern Europe
Other UNECE countries
also
Small Island States

12. Capacity Building Partners
Further developments
Modified
GUI
Database
Submission mechanism
Specific query
Capacity Building Partners
National Nodes
Users
Specific output

13. Further developments UNEP UNITAR REC/CEE ECO-Forum WRI/TAI/ PP10 OSCE
Milieukontact
Oost Europa
National
nodes WB
CAREC