The second meeting of the drafting group on the guide to reporting under the Water Convention and on SDG indicator 6.5.2 will be held on 3 and 4 September 2019 in Geneva, Switzerland. It will start at 10:00 a.m. on Tuesday, 3 September 2019 and end at 5:30 p.m. on Wednesday, 4 September 2019.

The guide to reporting under the Convention and on SDG indicator 6.5.2 will provide guidance on how to organize the reporting process, together with clarifications on how to fill in the template, including definitions of terms and the scope of the questions. The guide will also include examples providing practical illustrations on how to fill in the template.

The second drafting group meeting builds on the discussions and recommendations of the first meeting of the drafting group on the Guide to reporting under the Water Convention and on SDG indicator 6.5.2 (Geneva, Switzerland, 9-10 May 2019). The first meeting of the drafting group agreed on the scope and objectives of the Guide to reporting and further elaborated the outline and contents of the Guide.

The main objectives of the second meeting of the drafting group are to:

• Discuss and further elaborate the first draft of the Guide to reporting, prepared for the drafting group meeting, together with the comments received by countries before the meeting;
• Examine examples chosen to illustrate the concepts and meaning of questions in the template;
• Discuss if the draft Guide sufficiently clarifies questions and the terminology used, addresses common challenges and prevents possible misinterpretations;
• Examine relationship of the Guide with other relevant guidance material for reporting on SDG indicator 6.5.2, in particular the step-by-step methodology for the calculation of the indicator and guidance being developed for SDG indicator 6.5.1.

The working language will be English, French, Russian and Spanish.

Participation and registration

The second meeting of the drafting group on the guide to reporting is targeted at experts responsible for completing the reporting template or coordinating the reporting process on SDG indicator 6.5.2 and under the Water Convention. In order to enable an interactive and effective meeting, a limited number of country representatives are invited. Invitees include both Parties and non-Parties to the Water Convention, both countries who reported and who didn't (but do so in the future) and country representatives across all SDG regions and from different transboundary water contexts.

In accordance with the United Nations accreditation procedures, participants are requested to register by 20 August 2019, by following the link. Kindly use as your browser Google Chrome or Internet Explorer when making your online registration. If you require practical assistance with registration, you may refer to the user manual on contact the UNECE secretariat by email.

Participants are responsible for securing a visa to attend the meeting. Switzerland is part of the Schengen area, and visa applications might take up to 5 weeks. The UNECE secretariat will provide visa invitation letters to participants to facilitate the process. If you require a visa for Switzerland, please inform the UNECE secretariat as soon as possible and begin the visa procedures no later than 30 July 2019. 

For countries eligible for financial support, UNECE is in the position to finance the participation of one representative per country, including a return ticket to Geneva and an allowance to cover the cost of the stay. To request financial support, please return the financial support form duly completed and signed to the UNECE secretariat by email as soon as possible and no later than 23 July 2019.

The meeting will follow a PaperSmart model. Therefore, participants are asked to bring their own copies of documents or laptops.