October 2008: The annual meeting of the Environment Management Group (EMG) was hosted by the World Health Organization (WHO) and took place at WHO headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, on 8 October 2007. The meeting sought to review and discuss the EMG’s work as well as progress made in the areas of a climate-neutral UN system and sustainable procurement, and to address the role and contribution of the EMG to the ongoing International Environment Governance (IEG) process.

The meeting concluded that it was premature for the EMG to establish a formal Issue Management Group on IEG, given the open-ended nature of the IEG process. Participants agreed on four key areas of interest in relation to IEG, including: i) initiating issue- or theme-based cooperation that could result in enhanced systemic coherence; ii) developing an issue-based approach to enhance synergies among Multilateral Environment Agreements (MEAs); iii) clarifying the mandates and roles of the different intergovernmental institutions dealing with environment and sustainable development; and iv) identifying ways to increase policy coherence between the three pillars of sustainable development, as well as between the environmental and economic/trade agendas.

On structural issues, it was agreed that the experience with implementing the current work programme, through the issue management groups on the climate-neutral UN and sustainable procurement, would provide a good foundation for developing ideas in relation to the EMG’s terms of reference, to be considered at the next annual meeting (IISD RS sources).