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SEEA Progress in the six Eastern Partnership countries

The ENI SEIS East II project aims to strengthen the regular production of environmental indicators and assessments of the SEIS type as a contribution towards knowledge-based policy-making and good governance in the field of the environment.

ENI SEIS East II partner countries - Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine, identified the need and requested capacity building in environmental accounting during the first Regional Project Steering Committee Meeting of November 2016.

National governments as well as international organizations included SEEA as part of the green economy and sustainable development programmes. This need for the action was reflected in the Regional work plan of the project 2017-2020.

The SEEA implementation as part of a development of country’s national information system is a valuable and significant investment. There are many potential areas and themes that can be the target of SEEA implementation. In the context of developing an ongoing program of work on linking environmental and economic and social issues, the SEEA can serve as a catalyst for action by providing a comprehensive, consistent and integrated framework. The use of environmental accounts ensures that indicators are consistent, comparable and coherent because of their component data are derived from a common conceptual framework.

In 2017, the EEA self-assessment on SEEA progress study was conducted to analyse the state of play and structuring capacity building. This assist to measure the readiness of countries (data availability, institutional and human capacity,) and identify area of work to. Key findings indicated that the SEEA is an emerging component, which is included in national statistical programmes led by NSOs with priority areas for the SEEA include land accounts, air emission accounts, water accounts and environmental protection expenditure accounts.

Environmental accounting is an internationally recognized tool to produce environmental indicators and indicator-based assessments. The EEA Study of the effectiveness and relevance for policymaking and public information of recent environmental assessments in the ENI East region conducted in 2017 identified a way forward for new methods and tools for environmental assessments. This includes environmental accounting, environmental modeling, GIS applications and scenarios analysis and forecasting. Result is more analytical, dynamic, timely and knowledge-based assessments.

In 2020, an assessment of SEEA implementation demonstrated progress in six eastern countries:

  • Armenia - regularly produced and published accounts (water emissions, supply and use table for water in physical and monetary units),
  • Azerbaijan (energy assets and physical supply and use tables for energy),
  • Belarus (supply and use table for water in physical units),
  • Georgia (material flow accounts),
  • Ukraine (air emission accounts and environmental protection expenditure accounts).

Summary of the SEEA Progress in the six eastern partnership countries

May 2020
ArmeniaAzerbaijanBelarusGeorgiaMoldovaUkraine
SEEA Central framework
Natural resource accounts
2.1. Land cover accounts Project Project Project Project Project Project
2.1.1. Physical asset accounts for land (land cover and/or land use) Project Project Project Project Project Project
2.1.2. Monetary asset accounts for land (land cover and/or land use) Future
2.2. Forest accounts Future Future     Future
2.2.1. Physical asset accounts for timber resources Future Project Project
2.2.2. Monetary asset accounts for timber resources Future Project  
2.3. Water stock accounts Future Future
2.3.1. Physical asset accounts for water resources Project Regular Project
2.4. Mineral and energy asset accounts Future
2.4.1. Physical asset accounts for mineral and energy resources Regular
2.4.2. Monetary asset accounts for mineral and energy resources Future
Physical and hybrid flow accounts
2.7. Air emission accounts Future Future Future Project Project Regular
2.8. Water emission accounts Regular Future
2.9. Water flow accounts Regular Future Future Project
2.9.1. Physical supply and use tablets for water Regular Project Regular Project Project
2.9.2. Monetary supply and use tablets for water Regular Future
2.10. Energy and material flow accounts Future
2.10.1. Physical supply and use tablets for energy Regular Project Future
2.10.2. Monetary supply and use tablets for energy Future
2.10.3. Full set of supply use tablets for energy Future
2.10.4. Enonomy-wide material flow accounts (MFA) Future Future Regular
2.11. Waste accounts Future
Environmental activity accounts
2.12. Environmental protection expenditure accounts (EPEA) Future Future Future Regular
2.13. Resource use and management accounts (RUMEA)
2.14. Environmental subsidies account Future Future Future Project Project
2.15. Environmental taxes account Future Future Future Project
2.16. Environmental goods and services sector accounts (EGSS) Future Future
SEEA Experimental Ecosystem Accounts Project Project Project Project Project Project

Summary of activities

  1. Assessments of SEEA progress in the six Eastern Partnership countries were carried out in September 2017 and September 2019:

  1. Transfer of EEA and EU know-how on environmental accounting via vocational training with the UNECE Statistics Division and Eionet partner in using policy-relevant and knowledge-based analytical tools such as the UN SEEA CF and SEEA-EEA:

  • Vocational training courses on SEEA as an instrument to bring integrative assessment approach and GIS for environment for the experts from six Eastern partnership countries. It is considered as platform for capacity development and experience sharing in implementation of the SEEA.

  • Didactic materials for the training have been developed.

  1. Visibility and awareness for the project activities and deliverables to supports development of environmental information platforms at country level in order to set up regular assessments and reporting on environment:

  • Raise awareness on benefits and added value on implementation of SEEA in close cooperation with UNSD, UNECE, OECD and NFPs.

Deliverables

National Event Regional Event
Date Type of event City / Country Title of events
13-14 February 2020 Regional Geneva, Switzerland Joint OECD/UNECE Seminar on the Implementation of SEEA
2-6 September 2019 Regional Montpellier, France Vocational training on environmental accounting
29 May 2019 National Baku, Azerbaijan Training on water accounts in Azerbaijan
21-22 February 2018 Regional Geneva, Switzerland Joint OECD/UNECE Seminar on the Implementation of SEEA
30 October 2017 Regional webinar Training Program on the System of Environmental-economic Accounting Central Framework (SEEA-CF)
28 August - 1 September 2017 National Montpellier, France Training on environmental accounting - first cycle

Knowledge resources

European Environment Agency

UN SD and UN CBD

Library:

  1. Environmental protection expenditure accounts Handbook - 2017 edition
  2. Manual for air emissions accounts

Partners

The work is implemented by European Environment Agency jointly under contracts with the Eionet partners such as the French Agricultural Research Centre for International Development (CIRAD) and the UNECE Statistics Divisions.