Monitoring implementation of international agreements

Each UN Convention has a Secretariat at the UN which monitors the implementation of agreed actions and disseminates the performance of each convention to signing countries. It also provides technical guidance and advice.

A signing country is expected to ratify a convention by designing an act or regulation in the national laws to meet the requirements of the agreed convention. The act or regulation is expected to provide the mechanisms or framework of implementation including monitoring. It provides standards, requirements, institutional implementation arrangements and sets out duties and responsibilities of the competent authority and the stakeholders.

As with all international agreements and legislation, implementation in the various countries is dependent on the capacity of those countries to do that meaningfully. To have real impact in practice, legislation requires political will at a national and local level and sufficient resources for implementation to be achieved. The next and final study session goes on to look at the national regulations and policies relating to water, sanitation and hygiene in Ethiopia.