5 March 2002: The first Meeting of the Health and Environment Ministers of the Americas was held from 4-5 March 2002 in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.

The meeting was organized by the Canadian Departments of Health and Environment, in cooperation with the Pan American Health Organization and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). Twenty-nine Ministers of Health and/or Environment from countries in the Americas gathered for the meeting, which was also attended by over 150 other representatives of governments, intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations, and United Nations agencies. Canada’s Minister of Environment, David Anderson, and Minister of Health, Anne McLellan, facilitated the meeting and moderated the discussions.

The meeting aimed to build bridges between the health and environment sectors to address common issues, strengthen countries’ capacities to manage health and environment issues effectively, establish follow-up mechanisms, and contribute to the upcoming World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) in Johannesburg. To achieve these aims, participants met in Plenary sessions focusing on the following issues: building bridges between the health and environment sectors and setting future directions; establishing issues of common concern and shared goals; and building and sharing capacities to address environmental threats to human health.

The meeting concluded with the adoption of a Ministerial Communiqué on health and environment that will feed into the WSSD and Summit of the Americas processes. The Communiqué established an agenda and an ongoing process for future work on environment and health issues.

The IISD RS Sustainable Developments report outlining these discussions in detail can be found at: http://enb.iisd.org/linkages/sd/sdhem/sdvol72num1.html