. /.  WORLD TRADE  
ORGANIZATION  WT/CTE/GEN/17 
2 March  2005 
 
 (05-0888) 
Committee on Trade and Environment Original:   English 
  
 
UNEP'S NATIONAL LEVEL INTEGRATED ASSESSMENT WORK 
 
Statement by UNEP at the Regular Session
 
of the Committee on Trade and Environment of 22 February 2005  
 
 
1. As you are aware, Paragraph 33 of the Doha Ministerial Declaration encourages the sharing 
of experiences with national-leve l environmental reviews.  With this in mind, UNEP would like to 
take this opportunity to brief the Committee on r ecent developments with respect to UNEP’s national-
level integrated assessment work.   
2. At the outset, it should be noted that UNEP’s cu rrent work on integrated assessment evolves 
from its long history of promoting the use of e nvironmental assessments.  Since the early 1970s, 
UNEP has been engaged in the development and pr omotion of environmental impact assessments.  
However, in the context of macroeconomic a nd trade policies, UNEP’s focus on assessment has 
broadened to encompass consideration of all three pillars of sustainable de velopment - environmental 
protection, social equity and econom ic development.  Of course, UN EP is not alone in this work.  
There is increasing international recognition of the value in ensuring these various impacts are 
assessed and balanced in order to maximize the contribution of trade and economic policies to 
sustainable development at the national level.   
3. Since 1997, the UNEP Economics and Trade Br anch has initiated and undertaken three 
rounds of projects supporting integrated assessments of  trade-related policies at the national level.  
Led by national research institutions, the coun try projects have led to country-specific 
recommendations aimed at helping national officials strengthen the contribution of trade to meeting 
their national development goals. 
4. The most recent round of country projects have focused on trade liberalisation in the rice 
sector in Colombia, China, Indonesia, the Ivory Co ast, Nigeria, Senegal and Vietnam.  The rice sector 
was chosen due to its importance to the national economies and food security of these countries.  The 
country studies and synthesis report for these projects will be published within the next few weeks.  
Prior to the next CTE meeting, participants fro m several of the country assessment teams will be 
invited to Geneva to brief interested governments,  non-governmental organiza tions and others on the 
process and outcomes of the assessments.  In the m eantime, an electronic version of the studies and 
synthesis report will be available on the UNEP Econom ics and Trade Branch website, and hard copies 
will be available by contacting UNEP directly.  UNEP would like to take this opportunity to thank the 
government of Norway and the European Commission for their generous funding of these projects.   
5. In addition to these past projects, UNEP is curre ntly engaged in an initiative funded by the 
government of Norway to support the use of in tegrated assessment methodologies in national 
planning processes.  This work explicitly fo cuses on using assessment methodologies to strengthen 
trade promotion and to address poverty, while achie ving other national goals such as the management 
of natural resources.  Some of the planning pro cesses chosen by the country teams to assess include 
national Poverty Reduction Strategies, land use planning, and national, regional and sectoral 
development strategies.  As part of this initiativ e, the UNEP-UNCTAD Capacity Building Task Force WT/CTE/GEN/17 
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 organized a two-day training workshop meeting last w eek for the eleven countries participating in the 
initiative.  The training workshop, which was held on February 14-15, focused on addressing the main 
challenges identified by national teams in the first year of the initiative.  
 
6. Immediately following the workshop, a Mid-Term Review meeting for the country projects 
was held.  This meeting provided a forum for na tional institutions and government ministries 
participating in the projects to share experiences, discuss preliminary findings, and receive feedback 
from other international instituti ons, governments, NGOs and donors.   The workshop also allowed 
participants to discuss possible solu tions to identified gaps in the assessments, and develop strategies 
to enhance project implementation.  The Mid-Term  Review meeting also resulted in a number of 
recommendations, which UNEP will incorporate in to its country-level assessment work going 
forward.   
7. In conclusion, UNEP’s experience in supporting in tegrated assessments at the national level 
has helped strengthen national trade policies and ou tlined the importance of providing policy makers 
with the tools necessary to make informed deci sions that support nationa l development goals.   
 
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