Secretariat - Office of the Co-ordinator of OSCE Economic and Environmental Activities

The 1998 Aarhus Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-Making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters establishes that sustainable development can be achieved only through the involvement of all concerned parties. The Convention builds directly on Principle 10 of the Rio Declaration by linking government accountability to environmental protection, and through its focus on interactions between the public and public authorities in a democratic context.

The OSCE has, since 1999 worked closely with the UNECE Aarhus Convention Secretariat in promoting the ratification and implementation of this Convention by its participating States. The Office of the Co-ordinator for OSCE Economic and Environmental Activities been supporting the establishment of Aarhus Centres and Public Environmental Information Centres (PEICs) in several states in South Eastern Europe, the Caucasus and Central Asia.

In this initiative, the OSCE partners primarily with the Governments of the participating States where these Centres are located as well as with the leading non-governmental organisations. In close co-operation with the Environmental and Security (ENVSEC) Initiative a partnership between the OSCE, UNEP, UNDP, UNECE, REC, as well as NATO as an associate partner, the Aarhus Centres and PEICs have so far been established in Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belaurs, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.

The Aarhus Centres and PEICs serve as a link between the Government and NGOs in the sphere of environmental policy-making and implementation. They also provide a platform for coalition-building and partnership among NGOs in addressing environmental issues.

In an effort to generate knowledge from the experience of the Aarhus Centres and to benefit from their best practices, the OSCE commissioned an Independent Evaluation of Aarhus Centres in 2008, which also paved the way for the Aarhus Centres Road Map in 2009. It is within this framework that the OCEEA is putting efforts

• to strengthen the capacity of Aarhus Centres;
• to increase their ownership by national and local players;
• to enhance networking and communication among them;
• to increase their visibility and
• to explore ways to ensure their sustainability.