This special session was held in the morning of 22 October 2018 on the margins of the third annual meeting of the GREEN Action Task Force. It was co-organised and co-chaired by the EEA, the OECD and the Ministry of Environment of the Slovak Republic. The session covered relevant aspects of sharing environmental information and  its use for state of environment (SoE)  reporting based on the EEA and Eionet's experiences. SoE reporting has been extended to the Eastern Partnership countries under the currently implemented ENI SEIS II East project, and the Slovak Environment Agency (SEA) sharedits national experience on environmental reporting and use of data and information in preparing SoE reports.

The event was attended by approximately 50 representatives of the EU Member States, the Eastern Partnership and Central Asian countries and colleagues from OECD, UNECE, UNIDO and the European Commission (DG NEAR).

The Deputy Minister of Ecology and Natural Resources of Ukraine, Mykola Kuzio, underlined the importance of reliable and comparable data for improving the state of environment across the region for the benefit of policy-makers and the public.  

 The following points were addressed during the session:

• It is important to deliver environmental information in an accessible format to both the public and decision-makers to support environmental governance at all levels.
• It is extremely important to maintain good cooperation and coordination with international organisations.
• Sharing the EEA and Eionet's examples with partners from the Eastern Partnership is a very good opportunity to build on the experience of countries that went through similar transitions in the 1990 (e.g. Slovak Republic).
• A good monitoring system is crucial to support an indicator system and preparation for integrated assessment which in turn is crucial to ensure the uptake of environmental information by decision-makers and the public.
• The SEIS principles are a good basis for ensuring that efforts are sustainable.
• Reporting to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) provides a common goal and looks at the efficiency of the reporting system, which can be the link to the further cooperation.
• There is a need to combine efforts to ensure further developments with respect to resource efficiency and the circular economy.

Link to Facebook coverage by the Slovak Environment Agency

Statements, presentation slides and meeting documents are available on the OECD's event web page in English  and Русская версия.