The purpose and scope for the monitoring and review of the ESCAP conference structure is outlined in ESCAP resolution 64/1 on the restructuring of the conference structure of the Commission, which requests the Executive Secretary to, “undertake systematic monitoring and evaluation of the conference structure and its link to the programme priorities of the Commission.” The Executive Secretary is to report to the sixty-seventh session of the Commission (year 2011) on, “the implementation of [resolution 64/1], focusing in particular on whether the conference structure has served the purpose of improving efficiency and attracting higher and wider representation from members and associate members…”. This report should form “the basis for a midterm review of the functioning of the conference structure to be conducted during the sixty-seventh session” and inform “a review of [the] conference structure, including its subsidiary structure” at the sixty-ninth session of the Commission (year 2013). Thus, the overall purpose is to inform the decisions of the Commission on improvements to the conference structure so that it more effectively meets its mandate.

The 65th session of the Commission was held from 23 to 29 April 2009 in Bangkok. The present assessment of the outcomes of the 65th session of the Commission forms part of the systematic monitoring of activities under the Commission’s conference structure. Although assessments of the Commission session were completed in the past, the process has been revised in order to gather systematic information on the relevance, efficiency and effectiveness of the Commission session in order to feed into the mid-term and final reviews of the conference structure. 

A questionnaire was distributed by the secretariat during the 65th session of the Commission. The response rate to the questionnaire was 74%; 35 of the 47 ESCAP member and associate members, which had attended the 65th session of the Commission, provided feedback to the secretariat. The present assessment has been prepared on the basis of the feed-back received from those delegations.