June 2010: A number of meetings have taken place recently to follow-up on decisions by the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) Conference of the Parties (COP) related to National Action Programmes (NAPs) and indicators. Delegates from Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) parties met from 7-10 June 2010, in Prague, Czech Republic, to discuss the alignment of national action programmes (NAPs) with five operational objectives of the 10-Year Strategy of the UNCCD (2008-2018), adopted at COP 8 in September 2007. This meeting also considered the regional initiative on financial resource mobilization to strengthen the implementation of the Convention in CEE parties. This element focused on enabling focal points and others concerned to start the formulation of Integrated Financing Strategies relevant to the UNCCD objectives.

Following this meeting, a meeting of the Chairpersons of the five Regional Implementation Annexes of the UNCCD convened in Prague, on 11 June 2010. The meeting focused on the alignment of action programmes with the 10-Year Strategy, the assistance programme to be facilitated by the Secretariat in partnership with the UN Development Programme and the Global Mechanism, the fourth UNCCD reporting and review process, and support to be provided to parties in the 2012-2013 reporting and review exercise.

Also on 11 June 2010, the UNCCD Secretariat organized a meeting with relevant institutions that have experience related to the implementation of the sub-set of two impact indicators. The meeting, which took place in Bonn, Germany, sought to: discuss methodologies in use to measure the two impact indicators and provide practical recommendations on data collection, processing, monitoring and reporting methods for the production of these indicators; review availability, accessibility and quality of the necessary data for the impact indicators and identify data sources and gaps; and initiate the discussion on the technical support that the invited institutions and agencies could provide in the reporting process of the impact indicators at the global and national levels. [http://www.unccd.int/publicinfo/announce/docs/Resolution_final.pdf; http://www.unccd.int/publicinfo/announce/first-regional-NAP-alignmentmeeting.php; http://www.unccd.int/publicinfo/announce/chairpersons-meet-prague.php; http://www.unccd.int/science/announce/meeting-on-methodologiesdata-needs.php]