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Global Environment Outlook (GEO) is the UNEP flagship report
series on the state-and-trends of the global environment first
requested in a UNEP Governing Council decision of 1995.
The peer review process of first draft of the fourth Global
Environment Outlook (GEO-4) report is now underway by governments,
experts, science institutions, international organizations
and other stakeholders. Scientific and policy review has
always been a key component of the Global Environment Outlook
(GEO) process, involving many stakeholders in and outside
government structures.
The involvement of MEAs in the GEO-4 review process is
important to UNEP and follows up on a recommendation of
the GEO-4/MEAs Consultation in October 2005 in Bonn, Germany,
that UNEP involves MEAs experts in the GEO-4 production
and review process. This is in order to ensure that important
MEAs’ scientific and policy issues of global and regional
significance, including emerging issues, gaps and challenges,
are given due consideration in the GEO-4 production process.
The underlying theme of the GEO-4 report is environment
for development, highlighting the critical issues of sustainable
development. In assessing the state-and-trends of the global
as well as emerging issues, the report also addresses issues
related to human wellbeing and the valuation of environmental
goods-and-services, building upon the work of the Millennium
Ecosystems Assessment (MA). About 200 regional and global
experts have been involved in drafting the GEO-4 report
which consists of five sections and 10 chapters.
Given that the GEO-4 draft report review is an open process
for all stakeholders we would like to encourage all interested
individuals to participate in this review process. You may
wish to review the whole report or to focus on chapters
of relevance to this and other related MEAs. The draft report
is already available for external review at:
http://dewa03.unep.org/geo/review/tiki-index.php
Username: Reviewer
Password: GEO4Draft1
The guidelines on the review as well as a template to use
for presenting comments to UNEP are also available at this
website.
The deadline for sending comments to UNEP is 15 July 2006.
All those who provide substantive written comments will
be acknowledged in an annex to the GEO-4 report and will
also receive a free copy of the report.
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