United Nations Environment Programme
Division of Technology, Industry, and Economics
Economics and Trade Branch

Second Working Group Meeting on Economic Instruments

31 January - 1 February 2002, Chavannes de Bogis, Switzerland

The Working Group on Economic Instruments for environmental policy was established on 18 June 2001. It provides a platform to help define modalities for the use of economic instruments for environmental management and sustainable development. A key aim is to enhance policy coordination at the national level related to the design and use of economic instruments, including maximizing the net development gains from trade liberalization.

More specifically, the objectives of the Working Group include:

  1. Enhancing awareness of the national and international context in which economic instruments function, particularly from the perspective of developing countries and countries with economies in transition;

  2. Improving understanding of the reasons why economic instruments are not being more widely used, and ways to make them more acceptable;

  3. Assisting governments in identifying circumstances and opportunities for the use of economic instruments, and in introducing measures to lower their transaction costs and thereby make these instruments more acceptable and viable at the local, national and international levels;

  4. Assisting governments in making the appropriate use of economic instruments to achieve national environmental objectives and to promote mutually supportive trade and environmental policies; and

  5. Promoting the use of economic instruments to achieve the objectives of Multilateral Environmental Agreements (MEAs)

The second meeting of the Working Group was mainly devoted to reviewing the first draft of a synthesis report prepared internally on the "Constraints on the Use of Economic Instruments and Ways to Overcome Them" and agreeing on the way forward.