On the 14 and 15 of May 2009, the ENI SEIS II South team from the European Environment Agency (EEA) and UN Environment Mediterranean Action Plan (UNeMAP) participated in a country visit to Algeria and met with officials from Algerian Ministry of the Environment and Renewable Energy (MEER), the National Statistical office and key national partners involved in production, management and dissemination of environmental information.

The objective of this 2-day mission was to meet with key national partners, discuss the contribution of Algeria to the regional environmental information and assessment cooperation activities, develop a road map for the implementation of activities in Algeria within the remainder of the project and agree on operational implementation. Chaired by the General Inspector for Environment and Sustainable Development of the Ministry of Environment and Renewable Energy, the national meeting gathered 40 officials from all key national partners. The Chair strongly indicated the urgency to formalise a national team (inter-sectoral committee) and indicated that official letters to nominate representatives will be addressed to partner organisation in the coming days, allowing to catch up with the delays to meet the project’s objectives.

While looking at the availability of data to support H2020 indicators and assessment, the meeting acknowledged that data exists with some gaps, some data handling/processing will be require to fit the requested EU standards. With the support of the Belgian cooperation, National Observatory for Environment and Sustainable Development (ONEDD) is currently finalising a State of the Environment Report (Rapport National Environment). The Report (and accompanied thematic monographies) will be an important source of information to populate the H2020 indicators.

A roadmap for implementation of SEIS activities in Algeria has been actively discussed. This roadmap is structured around the necessary steps to populate H2020 indicators and contribute to the regional H2020 assessment, taking into consideration the state of the art (data availability), the resources needed (internal and external expertise/consulting), the feasibility (capacity in processing), responsibilities for each sector (contact points) and logistical aspects (frequency of meetings), etc.

The meeting agreed on the following action points:

-          Setting-up of inter-sectoral committee – MEER will send an invitation to all partners to nominate a representative at the Committee;

-          Provide the members of the Committee with all the necessary documentation (methodology for indicators, infrastructure guidance, etc);

-          To further fine-tune the roadmap, in particular to assess technical support needed (consultancy, TA missions, national workshops);

-          To prepare Terms of Reference for consultant and launch recruitment.