| | 2003 consolidated project completion report | The Executive Committee decided:
(a) To take note of the 2003 consolidated project completion report, as contained in document UNEP/OzL.Pro/ExCom/41/8 and Add.1, including the schedule for submission of project completion reports due;
(b) To request the World Bank, in cooperation with the Fund Secretariat, to establish full consistency of data reported in the project completion reports, in the inventory and in the annual progress reports by the end of January 2004;
(c) Also to request UNDP and the World Bank to provide the information still missing in a number of project completion reports by the end of January 2004;
(d) To urge implementing agencies to continue to improve their descriptive assessments of completed projects in project completion reports, while at the same time ensuring that each assessment contained useful information specific to the project that was the subject of the report; and
(e) To request the Senior Monitoring and Evaluation Officer to provide the Executive Committee with information compiled on the lessons learned from project completion reports.
(Decision 41/6)
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| | Appointment of the Chief Officer | The Executive Committee decided:
(a) To note with appreciation the outstanding efforts made by the Chair of the Executive Committee to bring about the nomination and appointment of the Chief Officer;
(b) To express its warm welcome to Ms. Maria Nolan and best wishes on her appointment as Chief Officer; and
(c) To place the issue of Decision XV/48 of the Fifteenth Meeting of the Parties on the agenda of the Executive Committee for its 42nd Meeting.
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| | Report of the Treasurer | The Executive Committee decided:
(a) To take note with appreciation of the Treasurer’s report, including the tables showing the updated status of the Fund as at 18 December 2003 and reproduced in Annex I to the present report;
(b) To note with appreciation the note by the Treasurer on the methodology and assumptions used, and the increased transparency of data submission;
(c) Also, to note the reduction in the amount of losses from use of the fixed exchange rate mechanism and from the process for encashing promissory notes;
(d) To request contributing Parties to cooperate with the Treasurer to facilitate the timely encashment of promissory notes;
(e) To note that the cooperation of Parties’ financial authorities in sending written notification of payment to the Treasurer would be greatly appreciated;
(f) To urge those Parties that had not yet done so to make their contributions in a timely manner;
(g) To note with appreciation the contribution of Azerbaijan and encourage other Parties to follow the example it had set;
(h) To urge Parties with contributions that were long overdue to comply with paragraph 7 of Decision XI/7 of the Eleventh Meeting of the Parties; and
(i) To request the Treasurer to amend the last two rows of the table showing the 1991-2003 summary status of contributions and other income to read “outstanding contributions for certain countries with economies in transition”, and to add a footnote to the new title specifying the countries with economies in transition concerned.
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| | Service of the Treasurer | The Executive Committee decided:
(a) To request UNEP to continue acting as Treasurer;
(b) To negotiate a new agreement with UNEP for its services as Treasurer;
(c) That the new agreement should stipulate that the annual fee of the Treasurer would remain in effect unchanged for a period of five years as of the date of the agreement;
(d) That, pending the conclusion of the new agreement, UNEP should continue to be reimbursed for the cost of acting as Treasurer at a rate of US $301,000 per annum;
(e) To request UNEP to substantiate its request for an annual fee of US $500,000, including clarification of its need for additional support staff, and to seek further savings in this area;
(f) Also to request UNEP to provide information on the rate of return on its Fund investments; and
(g) To re-examine the issue at its 42nd Meeting.
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| | Treatment/encashment of promissory notes | The Executive Committee decided:
(a) To request the Treasurer to provide a report to the 42nd Meeting of the Executive Committee on the historical use of promissory notes. For each promissory note submitted to date, the report should include: country of origin, denomination, date of submission, place of custody, deposit bank of account, date of final Treasurer encashment, any exchange rate loss or gain that resulted to the Fund from the use of the note, schedule of encashment or other stipulation (if any) included by the country concerned with the submission of the note, but should not be drafted with a view to limiting countries’ right to use promissory notes;
(b) Also to request the Treasurer to report on rules and/or systems for the transparent and equitable encashment of promissory notes used in other forums, with a view to enabling the Executive Committee to determine the advisability of establishing more standardized rules for the use of promissory notes, and in an effort to ensure that the notes, as well as the contributions in cash, of all donors were treated equitably and exchange rate loss was minimized.
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| | Final report on the evaluation of the implementation of refrigerant management plans (RMPs) | the Executive Committee decided:
(a) To note the information provided in document UNEP/OzL.Pro/ExCom/41/7; and
(b) To transmit the recommendations contained in Annex IV to document UNEP/OzL.Pro/ExCom/41/6 to the open ended working group on RMPs set up by Decision 40/20.
(Decision 41/5)
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| | Draft monitoring and evaluation work programme for the year 2004 | The Executive Committee decided:
(a) To approve the proposed 2004 work programme for monitoring and evaluation at a budget of US $256,000, as indicated in document UNEP/OzL.Pro/ExCom/41/9; and
(b) To take into account the comments made by the members of the Sub-Committee on Monitoring, Evaluation and Finance, particularly with regard to the extent to which sectoral and national phase out plans assisted countries to meet their obligations under the Montreal Protocol.
(Decision 41/7)
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| | Methodology for assessing multi-year progress reports and technical audits | The Executive Committee decided to request the Fund Secretariat, in cooperation with the implementing agencies, to develop criteria for the assessment of the progress reports and verification audits of multi-year agreements with the aim of submitting a paper to the 43rd Meeting. |
| | Report from UNEP on the use of programme support costs (Decisions 35/36 and 40/49) | The Executive Committee decided to request UNEP:
(a) To investigate how it could prepare unified budgets for the Compliance Assistance Programme (CAP), possibly based on the concept of the general trust funds and integrating all the administrative costs and related expenses, as well as programme support costs, into an administrative budget; and
(b) To submit the result of the above investigation to the 43rd Meeting of the Executive Committee for its consideration.
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| | Export and import licensing systems | The Executive Committee decided to request the Secretariat to prepare an updated list of countries which lacked import and export licensing systems. |
| | Proposed changes to the Sub-Committee procedures | The Executive Committee decided that:
(a) If cost-related issues associated with projects were not resolved one week before a meeting of the Executive Committee, related projects should not be considered by the Sub-Committee on Project Review at that meeting;
(b) The Secretariat should provide to each delegation member of the Sub-Committee on Project Review a copy of any new or revised document that was completed subsequent to the last hard-copy dispatch of material;
(c) The Sub-Committee should strive to avoid discussion of projects until complete up-to-date documentation was available;
(d) If the Secretariat was recommending approval of subsequent tranches of multi year agreements without comment, related approvals should initially be put in the list of projects for blanket approval;
(e) At the first session of each meeting of the Sub-Committee on Project Review, the Secretariat should submit a document indicating the historical level of forward funding approved on an annual basis, and the implications for additional forward funding that would occur if all of the projects recommended for forward funding at the meeting were approved at that meeting; and
(f) The Secretariat should make every effort to economize on use of paper in preparing documentation for the meetings.
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| | Strategic business planning | The Executive Committee decided to request the Secretariat to prepare a financial planning document, providing:
(a) A status report on the process undertaken up to the 41st Meeting in implementing the Fund’s three-year model phase-out plan; and
(b) Guidance on the funding allocations for the remainder of the triennium, including total allocations for 2004 and 2005, allocations of the implementing agencies and the bilateral agencies, and a possible allocation for a funding window on accelerated phase-out and maintaining momentum.
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| | Review of the administrative cost regime and its core unit funding budget (Decision 38/68) | The Executive Committee decided:
(a) To note the document on administrative costs as presented in document UNEP/OzL.Pro/ExCom/41/81;
(b) To approve US $1.5 million each for core unit funding for 2004 for UNDP, UNIDO, and the World Bank;
(c) To request the Secretariat, in consultation with bilateral agencies, to compile historical data of the rates of programme support costs of the bilateral cooperation projects and the methodology used for the calculation of such rates with a view to examining the applicability of the current administrative cost regime established by Decision 38/68 to bilateral agencies, and to report thereon to the 42nd Meeting; and
(d) To continue to monitor the administrative cost regime adopted by Decision 38/68 in the context of budget requests for future years bearing in mind the need to maintain an overall rate of administrative costs below 10 per cent as was achieved in 2002 and 2003.
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| | Open-ended working group on refrigerant management plans | The Executive Committee decided:
(a) To recommend that bilateral and implementing agencies, in collaboration with Article 5 countries preparing and implementing refrigerant management plans, be given flexibility, within historically agreed funding levels, to implement refrigerant management plan components that are adapted to meet the specific needs of relevant Article 5 countries, and that planned changes to project activities be clearly documented and available for future monitoring and evaluation in accordance with Fund rules; and
(b) That in developing appropriate interventions, Article 5 countries and bilateral and implementing agencies should give consideration to:
(i) Concentrating support on the development of legislation and coordination mechanisms with industry, where these are not yet in place, and on further training programmes for refrigeration technicians and customs officers, using existing national capacities and providing expert support and resources such as equipment and tools required; this should also include efforts to raise awareness of the value of skilled technicians for end users and for stakeholders;
(ii) Also concentrating recovery and reuse of CFC on large-size commercial and industrial installations and mobile air conditioner (MAC) sectors, if significant numbers of CFC-12 based systems still exist and the availability of CFC is strongly reduced by the adoption of effective import control measures;
(iii) Further exploring possibilities for facilitating cost-effective retrofitting and/or use of drop-in substitutes, possibly through incentive programmes;
(iv) Becoming more selective in providing new recovery and in particular recycling equipment by:
a. establishing during project preparation a sounder estimate of the likely demand for recovery and recycling equipment;
b. delivering equipment to the country only against firm orders and with significant cost participation by the workshops for equipment provided, using locally-assembled machines to the extent possible;
c. procuring, delivering and distributing equipment in several stages, after reviewing the utilization of equipment delivered and verifying further demand; and
d. ensuring that adequate follow-up service and information are available to keep the recovery and recycling equipment in service; and
(v) Monitoring the use of equipment and knowledge acquired by the beneficiaries, on an ongoing basis, through regular consultations and collection of periodic reports from the workshops, to be carried out by national consultants in cooperation with associations of technicians. Progress reports based on such monitoring should be prepared annually by the consultant and/or the National Ozone Units, in cooperation with the implementing agency, as provided for in Decision 31/48, and sufficient additional resources should be made available to allow for such follow-up and reporting work.
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