Working Groups Launched to Prepare for Eye On Earth Summit

Five Working Groups were established in June to pre-craft the essential focus and intended outputs to be achieved during the Eye on Earth Summit and help define its agenda and programme.

Key areas of interest have been determined with Working Groups for each convened to identify and frame the most challenging environmental data and information issues.

Working Groups comprise thought leaders in their fields who represent a variety of sector interests.

The Working Groups are as follows:

• WG1 - Policy, Governance and Institutional Networking Working Group
• WG2 - Content and User Needs Working Group
• WG3 - Technical Infrastructure Working Group
• WG4 - Capacity Building, Education and Awareness Building Working Group
• WG5 - Applications Showcase Working Group

The membership of the Working Groups has been drawn from a wide array of stakeholder groups including governments, inter-governmental organisations, centres of excellence and various major groups representing the scientific and research community, academia, business and industry, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and other sectors. Each Working Group will have two co-chairs supported by a consultant and a small secretariat from the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).

A number of virtual meetings have already taken place in order to scope the work of the respective groups and compile an issues paper. Face to face meetings have been scheduled throughout the month of July and will be convened in Nairobi, Cairo and Geneva. The Working Groups will meet both virtually and face-to-face during the whole of the Summit’s preparatory phase. The initial findings from the Working Groups will be presented to the Summit Framing Committee which is tasked with ensuring harmonisation and integration of the Working Groups’ outputs with the overall vision and objectives of the Summit.