Participants were welcomed and UN-Energy’s input to and participation in the recently concluded fourteenth session of the Commission on Sustainable Development were reviewed. These included
1) inputs to the SGs report;
2) the launching of the UN-Energy Flagship report entitled “Energy in the United Nations: An Overview of UN Energy Activities”;
3) the UN-Energy side event which highlighted agency activities and the UN-Energy work on tools for policy integration at the national level (including the report, “Assessing policy options for increasing the use of renewable energy for sustainable development: modeling energy scenarios for Ghana”);
4) participation by some agencies and by the UN-Energy Chair in various CSD14 panels;
5) various side events and related off-site events; and
6) informal discussions including with representatives of the European Union.
The Chair thanked everyone for their activities including contributions to the UN-Energy flagship report, and he thanked UNDP, UNEP and DESA for financing the report.
There was some discussion of the evolving role of UN-Energy as a network of UN organizations implementing Agenda 21 and JPOI goals. The Chair indicated that he has had feedback on UN-Energy’s role from a number of agencies including the World Bank, DESA, UNEP and UNDP. There was discussion on the multilateral approach to issues such as energy for sustainable development, and the possible impact of the reform process. The Chair noted that he is involved in some aspects of the reform process and that he would brief the group at a forthcoming meeting on the latest reform-related developments.
The Chair noted that CSD14 was a very good venue to showcase UN-Energy, and to highlight successful joint efforts and noted that awareness of UN-Energy had increased considerably. A reconsideration of the work programme upon the completion of some items and with a view to incorporating additional activities that could make meaningful contributions to CSD15 was suggested. It was noted that work on energy access in Africa (led by UN-Energy Africa/UNIDO/ECA), bioenergy (led by FAO), and toolkits for national poverty reduction strategies (led by UNDP) were ongoing and relevant for CSD15. Agencies were invited to undertake additional activities to be delivered by end 2006, and some suggestions included aspects of the energy access issue (such as the interface between access to energy and sustainability), energy security, climate change, clean energy and renewable energy. Agencies were invited to submit brief concept papers outlining the purpose of the work and how it would be undertaken including a time-line and partners, to the UN-Energy secretariat (abdallak@un.org) by 10 June. Concept papers will be circlulated and posted on the members-only section of the website (E-Forum) prior to the next meeting which will be held by Video conference in June.
It was also agreed to maintain a critical calendar of events and agencies were encouraged to submit relevant events with dates and brief details of each activity to the UN-Energy secretariat (abdallak@un.org) on an ongoing bases. The calendar will be maintained on the UN-Energy website.