Task Force on Access to information2nd meeting

The Aarhus Clearinghouse – overview of its use and recent activities Agenda item 4

Geneva17 December 2013

Aarhus Convention secretariathttp://aarhusclearinghouse.unece.org/

Objective of the presentation

• Present basic statistics and usage patterns of Aarhus Clearinghouse

• Inform on current activities to increase use of Aarhus Clearinghouse

• Present ways to engage Parties and stakeholders in keeping Aarhus

Clearinghouse a living resource

ACH has some 6.600 views annually, mainly from English speaking countries

Views by number and by country

6.612

Number of views (Nov 2012 – Nov 2013)

675

Number of views (11 Nov – 11 Dec 2013)

Up 7% from 1 year earlier

Up 18% from the same month 1 year earlier

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Note: Statistics on visitors per country are based on annual data (Nov 2012-Nov 2013).

Views are to a great extent correlated with posting of News and Resources on ACH

Events driving the viewsPeriod displayed: 12 Oct – 12 Dec 2013Total number of views: 1225

News: U.N.'s Ban urges Russian leniency with Greenpeace activists

News: HS2 Bill is 'the worst Christmas present ever‘ (UK)

News: Basics statistics on usage of Aarhus Clearinghouse

News: Environment, forestry ministries snub press questions on third bridge (Turkey)

Resource: Aarhus video library

Keeping the ACH a living resource requires continous engagement

Activities by the secretariat to increase use of ACH

• Providing administrative access to Parties and stakeholders

• Coordinating next upgrade of ACH

Linking ACH with social media

Regular posting of news & resources Maintenance of ACH

• Tweeting news & resources posted on ACH

• Using UNECE account (follow us on Twitter #AarhusConvention#PRTRProtocol)

• Actively looking for updates on news & resources…

• ...and posting them on ACH

Using modern communication tools – e.g. infographics

• Preparing infographics on ACH

• …driving viewership by linking them with social media

31 4

168

News posted in 2013 (vs 56 in 2012)

57

Resources posted in 2013 (vs 36 in 2012)

2

Ukraine, Belarus, Serbia, Finland, Armenia

To increase ACH views, we strongly encourage Parties and stakeholders to subscribe to RSS feeds…

Subscribing to RSS feeds – applies for News and Resources

12

…however, we need to do more than just increase the number of views

Going forward, we would like to maintain ACH to be built in the ‘public participation’ spirit

Crowdsourcing – collaborative posting of News & Resources

Crowdsourcing - a way to keep the ACH alive and a truly collaborative tool

• ACH as the platform for information and resources related to public participation in environmental matters• Open for contributions from Parties and stakeholders•Crowdsourcing as a way to keep the ACH up to date and to strengthen the Aarhus Community•At present cca 95% of all contributions come the secretariat

Contact details

Contact us to get know more on how to start contributing to ACH

public participation@unece.org

http://www.unece.org/env/pp/welcome.html

Aarhus Convention secretariatUN Economic Commission for EuropePalais des Nations, Geneva, Switzerland

http://aarhusclearinghouse.unece.org/