Chair S Summary of the Meeting of The

CHAIR’S SUMMARY OF THE MEETING OF THE

ECOTECH SUB-SOMMITTEE

30-31 May 2001

Shenzhen, China

The second meeting of the Ecotech Sub-Committee (ESC) this year was held in Shenzhen, China, from 30-31 May 2001. It was attended by representatives from Australia; Brunei Darussalam; Canada; Chile; The People’s Republic of China; Hong Kong, China; Indonesia; Japan; Republic of Korea; Malaysia; Mexico; New Zealand; Peru; the Republic of the Philippines; Russia; Singapore; Chinese Taipei; Thailand; the United States; and Viet Nam. The APEC Secretariat and the Lead Shepherd of the HRD Working Group also attended. Representatives of PECC were present as observers. The list of delegates is attached at Annex A.

2. Dr Medhi Krongkaew, Associate Professor, Faculty of Economics, Thammasat University, chaired the meeting.

I.  Chair’s Opening Remark

3. The Chair welcomed participants to the meeting, particularly the Lead Shepherd of the HRD Working Group, Dr Lee Jeong Taik, and Dr Richard Feinberg, APIAN coordinator, who were attending at the invitation of the ESC. Dr Lee welcomed the opportunity to participate and underlined the need for good liaison between the HRDWG and ESC given the importance human capacity building in APEC.

4. The Chair noted that with the kind permission of the Government of Thailand he has been working at Kyoto University and, during his time there, had written several papers including on Ecotech issues, which had been circulated to members intersessionally. During a recent meeting in Beijing, involving the Foundation for Development Cooperation and China PECC, he heard the SOM Chair describe Ecotech as the second wheel of a bicycle. He found that an interesting change from the 'three-pillar' metaphor commonly used as it elicited a sense of forward movement and balance.

II.  Adoption of the Agenda

5. The draft Agenda was approved and is attached as Annex B.

III.  Business Arrangements

6. The Chair and the Secretariat briefed members on the business arrangements for the meeting.

IV.  Evaluating and Developing ECOTECH Activities

i)  Developing OAA part II.

7. The Chair reported that APEC Working Groups and the GEI had been advised of the work required for the update of Part II of the OAA, but not informed of the ESC coordinators so far, as it was not possible intersessionally to identify volunteers for the WGTP and the TWG. In response, Malaysia and the Philippines volunteered to liaise with the WGTP and TWG respectively. Members noted most fora had commenced work on the update, some were awaiting the outcome of forthcoming work program reviews and that the TWG had already submitted its first draft.

8. The Secretariat drew attention to the absence of a separate Action Program for Economic Infrastructure in the OAA Part II Annex. Some members expressed concern about developing a new section, especially because of the cross-cutting nature of economic infrastructure, the lack of a broad-based work program for the GEI and the review the GEI was carrying out of its membership and work program. Indonesia agreed to circulate by 22June, an outline of what might be included in a separate section on Economic Infrastructure, as opposed to what would be addressed by the GEI, so that members could decide on the matter intersessionally.

ii)  ECOTECH IAPs

9. The Chair said he was encouraged by the great deal of interest the issue of "Ecotech IAPs" had generated intersessionally. Eight papers on a possible framework for its development were circulated, including a detailed example by Singapore of what an HRD action plan might look like. After a lengthy discussion on the objectives and principles for an "Ecotech IAP" members agreed upon a template for individual members to report on what they were carrying out domestically, as well as collaboratively, in pursuit of the OAA Common Policy Concepts relating to human capacity building, in the first instance, with selective rather than exhaustive coverage of activities. It was also agreed to name the template “Ecotech Action Plan” (EAP) and to implement it as a pilot for two years, on a voluntary basis. Members were invited to prepare draft EAPs for consideration at ESC III, with a view to having a deliverable for the Ministerial and Leaders' meeting in October.

10. New Zealand advised that in discussions with the Ecotech Clearing House consultant, the consultant advised that it would be possible to link EAPs with the Clearing House. Each economy would be required, however, to produce an on-line version of the document to facilitate its addition to the Clearing House. The Secretariat briefed members on the further development of the Project Database (and through it the Clearing House) which would include new fields requested by the ESC, including type of project, leading economy and gender (of overseer), and budget information. However, it would still not be feasible for individual members, when preparing EAPs, to determine all the projects that they were or had been involved in, particularly because the Project Database was lacking in historical project information. Only information on the project overseer - contact details and the economy from which he/she came - was available.

iii)  APIAN Report/Evaluation

11. The Chair noted last year the ESC recommended that the APEC Secretariat, when filling a future vacancy, should seek the secondment of an officer with experience in project evaluation. He introduced Mrs Anita Douglas, who Canada had seconded to the Secretariat to fill that role.

12. The Chair invited Dr Richard Feinberg to brief members on the work of APIAN and its report last year “Learning from Experience”, notably its recommendations on Ecotech. DrFeinberg advised that APIAN's aims were, among others, to enhance knowledge and information about APEC, encourage fulfillment of APEC objectives and commitments, and to recommend ways to improve performance. It was based on voluntary participation and was open to all APEC Study Centre members. The APIAN report, prepared by 22 experts from 13 economies, found that there was a lot of good and valuable Ecotech projects being conducted, including the development of databases. Many HRD projects were well designed and executed, but one problem was the excessive diffusion of limited resources. It was important, therefore, for APEC to streamline its efforts, set priorities and improve coordination.

13. APIAN welcomed the SOM decision to seek external assistance for evaluation work. It proposed to assist the ESC in evaluating completed Ecotech projects with objectivity and a sense of balance. The aim would be to provide the ESC with feedback on what worked, what could usefully be replicated and what had not worked and should not be repeated. APIAN was prepared to establish an Ecotech Task Force to work with the APEC Secretariat in carrying out the task. APIAN had expertise in thematic areas and individual APIAN experts could be made available to participate in the update of OAA Part II or even provide feedback on completed EAPs, if required. Dr Feinberg indicated that APIAN was considering a second report on the 'big picture', institutional APEC issues, for completion by the Shanghai Leaders' meeting and, if not, by early next year.

14. In response to a question on the experiences of other organisations, Dr Feinberg said that the World Bank worked closely with civil society organisations in project design right through to the evaluation phase; a trend most international organisations were following. External assistance was seen as being more independent and a means of broadening support.

15. Members expressed interest in APIAN elaborating in writing, on its ideas relating to the structural aspects of the way Ecotech was being coordinated (above the level of individual projects), including with external organisations, and APIAN's possible role as a 'sounding board' on OAA and EAPs. Dr Feinberg advised that, following a meeting in Singapore in early June, APIAN would put forward a project proposal for the ESC's consideration.

iv)  Human Capacity Building (HCB)

16. The Chair of the Human Capacity Building Coordinating Group (HCBCG), Amb Elard Escala, reported that the HCBCG, following its inauguration at SOM I, had met informally in February and May and prepared its draft Terms of Reference (2001 SOM2 ESC 017) for SOM's endorsement. He would now be drafting the HCB strategy, taking into account related activities conducted by APEC to date, including the High Level Meeting on Human Capacity Building, last year’s Education Ministers’ meeting, and inputs provided by member economies, to ensure that the strategy developed was relevant to governments as well as to business and education providers. The draft strategy would be circulated to HCBCG members intersessionally for consideration and submitted to the ESC and SOM for endorsement, in time for the Dalian meetings in August. Members thanked the HCBCG Chair for the briefing, approved the draft Terms of Reference for SOM's endorsement, and asked that gender and micro-enterprise considerations be included in the HCBCG strategy.

17. China and Brunei briefed members on the outcome of the High Level Meeting on Human Capacity Building, which was held in Beijing, 15-16 May 2001. Members noted the Beijing Initiative and the accompanying document 'Opportunities for Further Work' (2001 SOM2 ESC 015).

v)  ECOTECH Weightings Matrix

18. Members noted the report by the Secretariat on the implementation of the Ecotech Weightings Matrix in the Ecotech projects submitted to the March BMC meeting (2001SOM2 ESC 010).

V.  Participating and Coordinating for a more focused outcome in ECOTECH Projects

i)  ECOTECH Clearing House

19. Members welcomed the offer by New Zealand to fund further improvements to the Ecotech Clearing House to enable information from the APEC Project Database to be uploaded automatically, and that by the United States to take over the maintenance of the Clearing House for a period of five years commencing from 2002. In view of the poor levels of participation and use of the Clearing House so far, members were encouraged to register with the web site's 'Information Xchange', if they had not already done so, and to publicise the Clearing House in their respective economies.

ii)  Coordination Reports

20. Members considered whether the ESC should continue with thematic evaluations of completed Ecotech projects and decided to defer for two years re-starting the cycle, as many of the recommendations that arose from earlier coordination reports were still being implemented by relevant fora.

21. The United States advised that the first meeting of the Agricultural Domestic Champions was held in St Louis on 23 May, the outcome of which was relevant to the ATCWG and the APEC Food System (AFS). Representatives from eight APEC economies attended with two others supporting the proposal to establish a virtual network to bring together those working on agricultural food technology issues. New Zealand would be chairing the process next year.

22. The United States, with the assistance of Indonesia, agreed to review the individual reports that members and relevant fora would be submitting to the ESC on their activities relating to the AFS (by 10 July) and prepare a draft overview report on the implementation of the AFS. Under the AFS timeline, the overview report has to be submitted to the APEC Secretariat by 1 August.

VI.  Disseminating the Benefits of ECOTECH

23. Members considered the draft outline of the SOM 2001 report on Economic and Technical Cooperation Work' (2001 SOM2 ESC 012) and asked that the Secretariat include a chapter on the extent and nature of the participation of communities in Ecotech activities. Furthermore, Japan undertook to provide information for the inclusion of a separate chapter on strengthening markets, notably on work in relation to strengthening legal infrastructure and SMEs.

24. Members questioned the requirement for the submission of a project proposal to the BMC to cover recurring costs for the publication and dissemination of the annual Ecotech report. The Chair agreed to seek a waiver from SOM so that the Ecotech report and, perhaps, other similar annual reports, could be included in the Secretariat's publication budget without the requirement of submitting project proposals.

VII.  Group on Economic Infrastructure (GEI)

25. The GEI Chair, Dr Bambang Bintoro, reported that on 28 May, GEI members, at the invitation of the Jiangmen Mayor and China PECC, had the opportunity to visit Jiangmen City, the pilot RISE Regional Growth Centre (RGC) in western Guangdong province. The Mayor and the Party Secretary spoke positively of the contribution RISE had made to the overall development of Jiangmen and to its projected growth in GDP. Members were briefed by IBM on its role in Jiangmen's e-readiness strategy and were able to see first hand the ostrich farm enterprise. With respect to the Manado-Bitung RGC, on the same day as the GEI's meeting representatives were presenting its investment prospects to the private sector in Washington DC. Manado-Bitung was continuing to implement many of the organisational and infrastructure recommendations from RISE, but was constrained by the lack of funds.

26. The GEI Chair advised that a proposal by the Australian APEC Study Centre for the establishment of high quality executive training for regulators was still being developed. He encouraged members to open a discussion informally with their own senior regulators to explore how the proposal could most effectively address their practitioners' needs.

27. The GEI Chair noted that the group was still experiencing difficulty attracting participation of those with an economic development or infrastructure background. That was making it difficult for the GEI to maintain substantive discussion on complex cross-cutting issues and initiatives and was affecting its ability to identify a broadly based agenda. He advised that the GEI would be discussing the problem intersessionally before deciding on next steps and a date for its next meeting.