23rd Senior Officials Meeting of the North-East Asian Subregional Programme for Environmental Cooperation (NEASPEC) was hosted by the Government of Mongolia on 9-10 October 2019 in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. The Meeting commended the progress in implementing activities in five programme areas while noting the importance of building synergies with relevant national, subregional, regional institutions and organizations, and multilateral programmes. 

With regard to NEASPEC five programmes, the Meeting came to the following decisions:

• Transboundary Air Pollution: Operationalize the North-East Asia Clean Air Partnership (NEACAP) through adopting the Rules of Procedure for its Science and Policy Committee, and mandating it to identify priorities work areas and workplans;
• Nature Conservation: Implement three new projects funded by the Russian Federation;
• Marine Protected Areas: Utilize the study on the sustainable management of MPAs, as a reference for cooperation among the NEAMPAN sites, and welcomed offer by China to host a NEAMPAN workshop.    
• Low Carbon City: Expand the scope of the North-East Asian Low Carbon City Platform to four new cities proposed by the Government of Mongolia (2 cities) and the Russian Federation (2 cities), respectively;
• Desertification and Land Degradation: Undertake a study or hold an expert group meeting and develop a proposal on new areas of work on interlinkage of DLD with other sectors including climate change for the consideration of the next SOM
• New Strategic Plan: Carry out an evaluation on the implementation of the NEASPEC Strategic Plan 2016-2020 to inform the process of developing the new strategic plan for 2021-2025

►  Report of the Meeting

►  Programme

►  Meeting documents 

1. Provisional agenda

2. Annotated provisional agenda

3. Transboundary Air Pollution

• Main document
• Annex I. Conclusion of the First Meeting of NEACAP Science and Policy Committee and Technical Centers 
• Annex II. Draft Rules of Procedure for NEACAP Science and Policy Committee, Technical Centers and Working Groups
• Annex III. Discussion Paper on the Workplan of the North-East Asia Clean Air Partnership
• Annex IV. ESCAP Resolution, “Strengthening regional cooperation to tackle air pollution challenges in Asia and the Pacific”

4. Nature Conservation in Transboundary Areas

• Main document
• Annex I. Workshop Programme on Transboundary Conservation of Big Cat Species in North-East Asia
• Annex II. Harbin Consensus on Strengthening Cooperation in Transboundary Conservation of Tigers and Leopard
• Annex III. KEI-NEASPEC Joint Project Report on “Conservation of Biodiversity in Northeast Asia and Border Cooperation”
• Annex IV. Concept note of Preliminary Study on Transboundary Cooperation among Protected Wetlands in the Tumen River Estuary
• Annex V. New Proposals on Three Target Feline Species of the NEASPEC Nature Conservation Strategy 

5. Marine Protected Areas

• Main document 

6. Low Carbon Cities

• Main document
• Annex I. Peer Review Report for Guangzhou City, China
• Annex II. Summary of Comparative Study on Low Carbon City Development in China, Japan, and Republic of Korea

7. Desertification and Land Degradation

• Main document

8. Review of the Core Fund

• Main document 

9. Plan for the NEASPEC Strategic Plan 2021-2025

• Main document 
• Annex I. Milestones of the development of NEASPEC Strategic Plan 2016-2020 (included in the main document) 
• Annex II. Draft evaluation questionnaire