Thank you...
(See the ‘Acknowledgements’ section for details)
We wish to thank all the organisations and individuals that contributed to the Healthy Planet Forum and all financial supporters that made the Forum possible.

Main documents of the environment and health process

WHO Budapest Declaration,
The delegated ministers from the 52 European countries and representatives of the World Health Organisation (WHO) European region had reached consensus and made political commitments to ensure safer environments for children, through the adoption of a Conference Declaration and of a children's environment and health action plan for Europe.

CEHAPE – Children’s Environment and Health Action Plan for Europe,
CEHAPE is a document for policy makers, negotiated with Member States, highlighting the main commitments on children’s environment in four regional priority goals (RPGs) for Europe: 1. safe water and adequate sanitation, 2. protection from injuries and adequate physical activity 3. clean outdoor and indoor air 4. chemical-free environments.

European Commission Declaration
The European Commission (EC) adopted its European Environment and Health Strategy in 2003 that supports in several points the UN-WHO declarations. During the Budapest Conference the Commission declared its readiness to find synergies between the UN and EU actions.

Youth Declaration
As the Budapest Conference was titled “Future for our Children”, therefore youth delegates developed and adopted a Youth Declaration.

NGO Brussels Statement
An “NGO statement” was also issued as a main outcome of the parallel activities to the ministerial process. The NGO statement welcomes the environment and health political processes, but also highlights shortcomings in implementation and the lack of political commitment in certain areas – the NGO Statement surely modulates and adds to the official documents.

Balance of the Forum
497 registered participants from 49 countries representing all sectors were present during the 4 days of the event, 4 plenary sessions, 36 workshops and over 15 exhibitions and ad-hoc events took place.

Indoor and outdoor air quality, noise, access to safe water and sanitation, environmental justice, nuclear waste, GMOs, chemicals, education, industrial investments and safety, consumer society, allergies, overpopulation… – just some highlights from the agenda.

The Forum was a very colourful, multinational and multicultural event, a result of enormous voluntary ‘civil efforts’ that generated a vast amount of ‘added value’ to the whole wide scope of the environment and health issues.

Acknowledgements

Forum contents

• The concept of the Forum was developed by Civil Society Delegates to the European Environment and Health Committee (EEHC). They came from: ECO-Forum, EPHA, ISDE, ICLEI, IFEH, REC, WECF and other organisations. The Regional Environmental Center for Central and Eastern Europe (REC) Country Office Hungary hosted the event in Budapest, Genon Jensen (EPHA), Sacha Gabizon (WECF), Martin Hojsik (Greenpeace), Gergely Simon (Clean Air Working Group) were particularly active in the program development as we got closer to the Forum-time. These organisations tried to represent the interest of the Civil Society during the conference with putting the multi-stakeholder approach on the flag.
  

  Sponsors and partners

• Without the financial and in-kind support of the Hungarian Ministry of Health, Social and Family Affairs and the Hungarian Ministry of Environment and Water this event would not be possible. The hosts are particularly grateful to State Secretary Zsuzsanna Jakab and her colleagues, Agnes Ratalics and Barbara Wenger for their help all the way. Certain workshops and events during the Forum are part of projects of the host organisations – thanks to those support organisations as well
  

  On the spot

• Thanks for Zsuzsanna Nemeth events coordinator of the College where the event was organised, Ervin Schwender, chief of the restaurant and the whole staff of the AVF Building - for their kind hospitality and flexibility.
• Dora Puppan and Adam Reparszky (Biborkurt Bt.) helped with all the logistics on the venue, and thanks for all the volunteers: Gabi, Csilla, Gergo, Adrienn, Andras
• Police lieutenant-colonel Zoltan Torok and Zoltan Hamar and their man during the Forum.

On behalf of the Forum organisers:
The Regional Environmental Center for Central and Eastern Europe, Country Office Hungary (REC COH)