27 August 2019 | Round table on open data and e-governance for the environment in Azerbaijan
The EEA, with support from PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) Lithuania, evaluated the maturity of environmental information sharing and dissemination in the six Eastern Partnership countries (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine). The evaluation aims to help the countries develop national roadmaps with concrete measures to modernise environmental information systems and raise the profile of environmental information in national open data and e-government processes.
The national round table took place at the Azerbaijan Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources on 27 August 2019 and brought together broad range of 30 experts from various ministries (ecology and natural resources, agriculture, emergency, transport/communications/technology (the open data host), forestry, water) and the Aarhus centre.
The round table discussed concrete steps to advance the sharing and integration of environmental information by exploring the legal, organisational and technical conditions framing national e-government and open data initiatives. Moreover, this project activity is closely linked with activities overseen by the UNECE Aarhus Convention and the Kyiv Protocol on Pollutant Release and Transfer Registers, as well as with current initiatives taking place in the EU on open data, streamlining reporting and improving access to environmental information. Discussions were based on the findings of the country maturity report and the roadmap on the measures identified for further action in this direction.
This event, which is part of ongoing EU-funded technical assistance, follows a regional event in Kyiv, Ukraine, 5-6 March 2019, where representatives from all six Eastern Partnership countries reviewed the findings of the evaluation of the maturity of open data for the environment. The findings of the national roundtables were presented in the second regional workshop on open data and e-government for the environment scheduled to take place back-to-back with the sixth meeting of the Task Force on Access to Information under the Aarhus Convention, 2-4 October 2019.