AFED Highlights
AFED News in a Monthly E-Bulletin
January 2019
UN Meeting Discusses Global Pact for the Environment, Nairobi, 14 January 2019
The open-ended working group on Global Pact for the Environment, established by the UN General Assembly, held its first session at the United Nations Office in Nairobi from 14-18 January 2019. Some 120 government representatives and 40 civil society organizations and specialized stakeholders, especially from the environmental law domain, participated in the meeting. One main target is to provide international courts with clear principles to guide the work of international courts in environmental disputes. AFED Secretary General Najib Saab, who participated in the meeting, proposed a Universal Declaration on Environmental Principles, based on the Stockholm Declaration on Human Environment in 1972, enhanced by the Rio Declaration and the parameters set in the Sustainable Development Goals of 2015. AFED warned against creating new set of rules in a new instrument which might not be in line with the ones currently existing in various specialized agreements and conventions.
http://afedmag.com/english/NewsDetails.aspx?id=11244
Meeting on Global Environment Outlook, Nairobi, 21 January 2019
The Intergovernmental Meeting on the Sixth Global Environment Outlook (GEO-6) Summary for Policy Makers (SPM) convened from 21-24 January 2019 at the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) headquarters in Nairobi, Kenya. The meeting was attended by 251 participants from 95 countries. The 1200-page report analyses effectiveness of environmental policies, and recommends transformative changes. AFED Secretary General Najib Saab is member of the High Level Group (HLG) overlooking the GEO process, and has participated in its work over the past 4 years. AFED experts had contributed to GEO at various stages, and AFED reports were used in the regional assessment.
http://afedmag.com/english/NewsDetails.aspx?id=11243
Distribution of AFED 2018 Annual Report, January 2019
As with previous annual reports, the annual report "Financing Sustainable Development in Arab Countries" was distributed to AFED institutional members, prominent universities in the region and across the world, embassies of all countries represented in Lebanon, and Arab ministers of environment, finance, economy and development. It was also distributed to heads of a select group of environment agencies in the Arab countries.
http://www.afedonline.org/webreport2018/afedreport2018.htm
Work on AFED 2019 report, February 2019
AFED's annual report for 2019 will be on Environment Education in Arab countries. This is the 12th in our series launched in 2008. The aim is to provide an overview of the situation at school, university and post-graduate levels, and develop recommendations to upgrade the system. One main question is how to tackle environment in the context of sustainable development, introducing concepts such as Green Economy, Sustainable Consumption, Ecological Footprint, etc. The report will suggest practical guidelines for environment education curricula. An expert team from various universities is currently working on the report plan, and different regional partners are involved.
AFED Annual Conference 2019, November 2019
AFED Annual Conference is initially planned for Thursday 14 and Friday 15 November in Beirut. Venue is being negotiated to determine optimum location and facilities. Sponsors are contacted to support the production of the report and logistics of the conference.
