1. Task Force on Access to information 2 nd meeting The Aarhus Clearinghouse – overview of its use and recent activities Agenda item 4 Geneva 17 December 2013 Aarhus Convention secretariat http://aarhusclearinghouse.unece.org/

2. 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

3. 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) U p 7% from 1 year earlier U p 18% from the same month 1 year earlier Annual Monthly Note: Statistics on visitors per country are based on annual data (Nov 2012-Nov 2013).

4. Views are to a great extent correlated with posting of News and Resources on ACH Events driving the views Period displayed: 12 Oct – 12 Dec 2013 Total 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

5. 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 3 14 168 News posted in 2013 (vs 56 in 2012) 57 Resources posted in 2013 (vs 36 in 2012) 2 Ukraine, Belarus, Serbia, Finland, Armenia

6. To increase ACH views, we strongly encourage Parties and stakeholders to subscribe to RSS feeds… Subscribing to RSS feeds – applies for News and Resources 1 2 …however, we need to do more than just increase the number of views

7. 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

8. 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 secretariat UN Economic Commission for Europe Palais des Nations, Geneva, Switzerland http://aarhusclearing house.unece.org/