The second annual meeting of the ACEDP Joint High-level Roundtable (HLRT–2), the premier decision-making body of the program, was held in Canberra on 8 September 2008. Program owners AusAID and MOFCOM jointly chaired the meeting. Delegations from the nine Program Core Partners, members from the Environmental Advisory Team (EAT), program coordination office (PCO), and the managing contractor GHD Pty, along with other relevant external experts participated in the event. Also present were representatives from the Australian Government Department of Climate Change and the Chinese Embassy in Australia.
Key topics discussed during the meeting included environmental priority areas for the program, ways of engaging Australian agencies in the program, upgrading of activity-level outcomes to program-level policy interventions and dialogues, the improvement of funding mechanisms, and emerging issues such as climate change and the Sichuan earthquake recovery. The ACEDP Progress Report, Policy Landscape Review Report, discussion papers on the program strategic directions and annual planning process were also discussed.
The meeting endorsed these reports and papers in principle. The PCO will amend these papers incorporating comments of delegates and prepare a final version. The programs operations manual will also be updated, and new guidelines for project funding procedure developed.