TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction What is the Urban Environment Forum? UEF >97 - A Brief Overview UEF-Euro >98 - What Happened in Moscow? ! Cities and Programmes discuss European priority concerns ! Participants recommend future UEF action UEF-Euro >98 Results by Working Group ! Improving information for sustainable urban development ! Improving decision-making through broader-based approaches ! Improving implementation through involvement of the private sector ! Promoting transparency in urban environmental management ! Improving implementation through legal instruments ! Supporting change through information campaigns and public awareness UEF-Euro >98 - The Moscow Declaration Round Tables organised in connection with World Environment Day ! Conclusions of the Round Table organised by the City of Moscow ! Conclusions of the Round Table organised by the K.E. Tsyolkovsky International Trustee Fund Annexes ! Modalities and Structure of UEF-Euro >98 ! UEF-Euro >98 Agenda ! Opening and Closing Speeches ! Participant List Please contact the Urban Environment Forum at: The Urban Environment Forum Secretariat UNCHS/UNEP, PO Box 30030, Nairobi, Kenya Telephone: +254 2 62 3225; Fax: +254 2 62 3715 E-mail: [email protected] Visit the UEF Web Site at http://www.unchs.org/uef INTRODUCTION UEF-Euro '98, the first regional meeting of the Urban Environment Forum, took place from 1 - 4 June, 1998. It was organised and supported by the UEF Secretariat of UNEP and UNCHS (Habitat), hosted by the City of Moscow and coincided with the World Environment Day celebrations on 5 June. During this very successful four day event, 600 participants took part in the opening and closing plenary sessions and 260 participants from 99 cities and 34 international support programmes came together in the working group sessions. This report is intended to provide all partners in the Urban Environment Forum with a record of the intensive work that took place in Moscow during UEF-Euro '98. It is not possible to convey all that happened or to provide all the information that was discussed and exchanged during the meeting, nor is it possible to outline all the new partnerships forged and agreements reached among UEF partners new and old. Instead, this report contains more abstract and general discussions, results and conclusions of the sessions, in addition to concrete recommendations as reflected in the UEF-Euro '98 Moscow Declaration. UEF-Euro '98 was also part of a series of events leading up to the United Nations Environment Programme=s global World Environment Day '98 celebrations taking place in Moscow on June 5. Another part of the events leading up to WED >98 was a number of "round tables" on urban related issues organized by the City of Moscow, and we are pleased to include summaries of their conclusions in this report as well. UEF-Euro '98, page 2 WHAT IS THE URBAN ENVIRONMENT FORUM (UEF)? The UEF is a loose global coalition of development practitioners centrally concerned with urban environmental management. Being defined by shared concerns and purpose - and not by institutional linkages - the UEF is genuinely a >forum=, which exists only to facilitate the ability of its members, individually and collectively, to achieve these purposes. The UEF reflects a paradigm shift in technical cooperation, away from a north-south flow of ready solutions and towards the advancement of collective know-how and cooperation and partnerships among city practitioners world-wide. The Urban Environment Forum evolved during a lengthy process of meetings, research, discussions, and exchanges which began in late 1994 as a project to formulate an Environmental Planning and Management (EPM) Guidebook. The increasingly enthusiastic response and participation of cities, however, gave the process a >life of its own=. Activities steadily increased, including international workshops in Dakar, Senegal (June 1995) and in Madras, India (February 1996), and the production (April 1996) of the initial draft of the EPM Guidebook. To respond to and build upon this tremendous energy and interest, it was agreed to hold a large-scale global meeting, to consider broader ways of moving forward. Thus in June 1996, a special meeting on >Implementing the Urban Environment Agenda= was held as a special event of the Second United Nations Conference on Human Settlements - Habitat II (Istanbul, Turkey). More than 250 representatives from over 75 cities and 20 international support programmes participated in the meeting, the results of which were synthesised into the >Istanbul Manifesto=. Reflecting the strong support of those participating, the Istanbul Manifesto established the Urban Environment Forum to be the concrete global mechanism through which cities and international support programmes could continue to exchange experiences, learn from one another, and collaborate in addressing urban environmental issues worldwide. In addition, the Manifesto affirmed the basic EPM framework, as developed over the previous several years and presented in the draft EPM Guidebook, as the unifying analytical framework through which diverse experiences of UEF members would be brought together. Following the Istanbul meeting, the Urban Environment Forum began to take shape through the revision and fine-tuning of the approach developed in the EPM Guidebook, and the consolidation of the new Urban Environment Forum. Information and feed-back from the Istanbul meeting, along with yet more city case studies, were fed into the revision process - and in the Spring of 1997, Volume One of the EPM Source Book, >Implementing the Urban Environment Agenda=, was published. Meanwhile, lines of communication were established to link UEF members together and plans were made to hold the first global meeting of the Urban Environment Forum. After an intensive period of organisational work, preparations were complete, and in early October 1997, on World Habitat Day, UEF >97 opened in Shanghai. UEF-Euro '98, page 3 UEF >97 - A BRIEF OVERVIEW UEF >97 brought together 300 representatives from 80 cities and 40 international support programmes, and their efforts throughout the meeting embodied the new development cooperation paradigm which emphasizes mutual learning, partnership and the sharing of experiences for advancing collective know-how. City reports and international support programme presentations at this global meeting were structured in a way that followed the integrating analytical framework agreed in Istanbul and elaborated in the EPM Source book. These sessions provided a thought provoking and encouraging view of the work being done at the city level and of the new ideas and approaches being developed. Two topics of special interest, monitoring progress and leveraging resources, were presented, assessed, reviewed and analysed, revealing a number of interesting and novel approaches which were thought to have greater potential applicability. At UEF >97, Volumes 2 and 3 of the EPM Source Book were formally launched, completing publication of the full three- volume set documenting the background, main principles and future visions for the Urban Environment Forum. A session devoted to the future direction and activities of the UEF resulted in a structure of global meetings every second year, with regional meetings in the intervening years. These regional meetings - which could be organized on a topic basis - provide the mechanism through which a wide variety of interests and views are identified, mobilised and brought into the Forum. The diverse insights resulting from these meetings will then be gathered together and integrated in the biannual global meeting, using the unifying analytical framework of the EPM Source Book, to advance the understanding of and ability to respond to the environmental challenges faced by cities world-wide. It was understood that the success of the UEF derives largely from the fact that the UEF defines itself by emerging shared purposes rather than pre-conceived institutional structures. Accordingly there was general agreement to allow the UEF to continue on its path of self- realization through progressive clarification and articulation of these shared purposes, rather than super-imposing a formal institutional structure. However, to provide essential continuity, to support the developing information exchange and especially to give the minimum logistical support in preparation and reporting of the global meetings, a secretariat function is necessary. The Sustainable Cities Programme (of UNCHS and UNEP) which supported the launching of the UEF, provided secretariat services since the Istanbul meeting, and coordinated preparations for the Shanghai Meeting, offered to continue in this role. The offer was gratefully accepted by the participants. Representatives of UNCHS (Habitat) and UNEP reconfirmed the commitment of their organizations to support the UEF. An important achievement towards global partnership in urban environmental management, the UEF was described as the type of initiative in which the UN system can play a facilitating and catalytic role in mobilizing an ever-widening range of actors and participants, helping to focus our collective energy and know-how towards concrete improvements in the quality of life - and sustainability - of human settlements everywhere. UEF-Euro '98, page 4 UEF-EURO >98 - WHAT HAPPENED IN MOSCOW? UEF-Euro >98, the first European regional meeting of the Urban Environment Forum, took place from 1 - 4 June, 1998. It was organized and supported by the UEF Secretariat of UNEP