Israeli Mr. Sharon Kedmi was elected Chair of the United Nations ECE (Economic Commission for Europe) Committee on Economic Cooperation & Integration during the 8th Session in February 12-14th 2014.
Mr. Kedmi also acts as a Special envoy for Economic Development at the Peres Center for Peace; in this position, his task is identifying, evaluating and potentially launching projects in fields such as health, agriculture, renewable energy, water technology and education. Mr. Sharon Kedmi also served as the Director-General of Israel's Ministry of Economy.
The Committee elected Mr. Sharon Kedmi (Israel) as
the Chair and Mr. Andrei Popov (Belarus), Ms Kris M. Easter (United
States) and Mr. Salvatore Zecchini (Italy) as Vice Chairs. This election
is for the period 2014-2015.
A total of 202 delegates
participated in the meeting, including representatives from the
following ECE countries: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Belgium, Canada,
Croatia, Czech Republic, France,
Georgia, Germany, Hungary, Israel, Italy, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan,
Lithuania, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Portugal, Republic of Moldova,
Romania, Russian Federation, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Tajikistan,
Turkey, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, United Kingdom, United
States of America and Uzbekistan. The European Union was also
represented.
The following panel discussions were held:
- The emerging landscape for innovation and PPP financing.
-
The role of public-private partnerships in financing the post-2015 United Nations Development Agenda.
- UNECE International PPP Centre of Excellence.
- Capacity-building
activities: The delegation of Israel expressed its appreciation for the
collaboration between the Israeli Agency for International Development
Cooperation (MASHAV) and
ECE since 2006. The most recent example of this cooperation was the
high-level policy seminar in green technology in Haifa in 2013, which
provided an opportunity for Israel to share its good practices in
innovative technologies and related policy making.
-
Programme
of Work and Draft Strategic Framework: The delegation of Israel invited
the ECE to jointly organise further high level events possibly on green
technology, entrepreneurship,
or another relevant topic related to innovation in 2014 and 2015.
Read the Israeli statement to the UNECE Committee on Economic Cooperation and Integration on Feb 14th here