The main activities within the Public Participation Campaign are focussed on:

1. Use of the Aarhus Convention Compliance mechanism
2. Preparations for the upcoming Meeting(s) of Parties to the Aarhus Convention
3. Capacity building
4. Information on implementation and development of the Convention and
5. NGO involvement in official processes
6. Work on Protocol on PRTRs, GMO amendment and Almaty Guidelines
7. Implementation of the Aarhus Convention in the EU
8. UNEP Guidelines on access to information,  public participation in decision-making and access to justice on environmental matters

1. Use of the Aarhus Convention compliance mechanism - among others

* we advice and help NGOs on the follow-up to decisions on non-compliance
*  we advise NGOs on filing communications (complaints)
*  we advice and assist NGOs in cases when the communications are confidential
*  we assist to NGOs during the preparation of the communication and also at the meeting(s) of the Compliance Committee
*  we help in answering written questions from the committee
*  we prepared and published "The Case Law of the Aarhus Compliance Committee" (in English and Russian)  to enable lawyers, public authorities, administrations, legislators, NGOs and members of the public to interpret and apply and the Convention correctly and more efficiently

2. Preparations for upcoming Meeting (s) of Parties to the Convention - the last one, namely the Third meeting of Parties to the Aarhus Convention (MOP-3)  took place in Riga/Latvia, June 2008

* our biggest achievement during this meeting was the agreement to work towards the establishment of the Task Force on Public Participation at the next MOP
* another important achievement was the adoption of the Strategic plan for the Aarhus Convention. It was weaker than we expected, but still an important step towards a long-term perspective in the further development of the Convention

The next meeting of Parties to the Aarhus Convention will be held in Moldova in 2011.

3. Capacity building

* issues-focused list servers (8 in total) used for communication, discussions about the issues and information dissemination throughout the pan-European region (there are some 500 organizations/individuals on these lists)
*  training workshops on the ACC mechanism organised in Geneva in paralell with the Compliance Committee meeting (there were two meeting until now (2007, 2008) and the third one will be in Geneva on 16-19 March 2010
*  capacity building workshops in different countries. So far, there were 4 such workshops, namely in Kazakhstan, FYRoMacedonia, Kosovo and Armenia.

4. Information on implementation and development of the Convention

* information provided through the website www.participate.org
* publishing of the  Participate newsletter
* an assessment of the National Implementation Reports submitted to the MOP-3

5. NGO involvement in official processes

We ensure the meaningful participation of NGOs in all official meetings (10 meetings on average per year), including the coordination of preparatory papers and reporting as well as organized discussions among NGOs, leading to initiatives that will hopefully influence the process. We also advised the Aarhus Secretariat on the selection of NGOs for financial assistance.

6. Work on the Protocol on PRTRs, GMO Amendment and Almaty Guidelines

*  we have developed a demo-PRTR - Russian language computer programme for setting up database and preparing simple PRTRs by NGOs
* we continue promoting ratification of the GMO Amendment
* we exercise possibilities and seek an experience of using Almaty Guidelines in different international fora

7. Implementation of the Aarhus Convention in the EU

8. UNEP Guidelines on access to information,  public participation in decision-making and access to justice on environmental matters

More detailed information about the activities of the PPC is available on this website.