70th Anniversary Session of the UNECE-ITC
Invited by the UNECE, a CITA delegation, composed of its Executive Director Mr. E. Fernández and its Communication Manager Mr. D. D’Onofrio, has been part of the seventy-ninth annual session of the UNECE-ITC, organized in Geneva from the 20th to the 24th of February 2017.
CITA has actively participated in the event.
On the 21th February, with the purpose of honouring not only the anniversary, but also the accomplishments of the Committee over seven decades, it has been organized the meeting of Ministers of transport dedicated to the “Past and Future of the UNECE Inland Transport Committee”. This theme has created space for reflection of the Committee’s past achievements, current performance and future trajectory, highlighting its evolution and underlining its future potential missions at a time of profound changes, challenges and opportunities globally. Through its thematic panels, it has been discussed issues related to ITC as a gateway to promote connectivity, as platform to link regulators and innovators with special attention to technologies for sustainable mobility and ITC as a centre of UN transport conventions, considering the benefits of internationally harmonized regulatory governance for inland transport.
During the break, Ministers were invited for a tour of the exhibition about the history of the Inland Transport Committee in the Salle des Pas Perdus of the Palais des Nations, where CITA could show its recent activities and projects. The exhibition lasted throughout the week.
Then the Ministers and all delegates, took part poster-signing ceremony about “The Future Inland Transport we want”! Also CITA signed this poster, where were included a list of enabling conditions to achieve important cross-cutting objectives.
The Ministerial Meeting has been followed by the regular annual session of the ITC.
Among the High Level events organized during the week were also: the Global Road Safety Film Festival and its award ceremony; a joint UNECE/ITC-UNEP Conference on “Ensuring Better Air Quality and Reduced Climate Emissions through Cleaner Used Vehicles”; the “High Level conference on Inland Water Transport”; a UNECE-IsDB joint workshop on United Nations Inland Transport Conventions.
The UNECE/ITC-UNEP conference on “Ensuring Better Air Quality and Reduced Climate Emissions through Cleaner Used Vehicles” was planned with the aim of answering to numerous questions related to reducing the emissions of the global fleet as priority for both climate and air quality issues.
The purpose of this one-day event is to discuss among policymakers, industry and experts a possible global approach to controlling the environmental performance of used vehicles, in order to ensure that trade in used vehicles does not simply more the problem from one region to another, and to ensure that used vehicles can also contribute to better air quality and reduced climate emissions.
The aim of the UNECE-IsDB (Islamic Development Bank) joint workshop on United Nations Inland Transport Conventions was to present the benefits of accession and implementation of UN transport legal instruments, especially to the 11 common member States between the EATL project and the Islamic Development Bank (IsDB), as well as to exchange information on implementation practices and challenges.
High-level participants from non-UNECE countries supported by the IsDB had the opportunity to get an overview of the 58 UN transport agreements and conventions under the purview of the ITC and its subsidiary bodies. Participants gained also understanding of the mechanism whereby the UN legal instruments are kept updated through the activities of the treaty bodies, i.e. the Administrative Committees, supported in this work by the Working Parties of the Inland Transport Committee.
Check out our Flickr account to see the highlights from the event