Fifth Meeting of the Executive Board of the Special Programme to Support Institutional Strengthening

The fifth meeting of the Executive Board of the Special Programme was held from 6 to 7 October 2019 in Bangkok, Thailand, taking place back to back with the third meeting of the SAICM Intersessional Process.

At the meeting the Board members endorsed the revised documents of the application package for the fourth round of applications for funding from the Special Programme and the e-learning platform. The Board also agreed to make the guidance and guidelines available in five of the UN languages.

Furthermore, the Board requested the Secretariat to launch the fourth round of applications in the margins of the third meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Minamata Convention on Mercury. The launch will take place at a side event scheduled for Friday, 29 November 2019.

The Board also reflected positively on the findings of the midterm evaluation of the Special Programme and approved the proposed timeline for the finalization of the report of the midterm evaluation, which is expected to take place in January 2020.

With regards to resource mobilization, the Executive Board endorsed the resource mobilization action plan as presented by the Secretariat. In addition, the Board requested that representatives from the private sector are invited the next meeting of the Board to discuss how to strengthen private sector engagement in the context of the Special Programme and the integrated approach to financing of chemicals and waste.

Furthermore, the Executive Board approved the proposed Request for Proposals for targeted communications presented with the view to facilitating the implementation of the second Phase of the Special Programme Communications Strategy.