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This supplementary report considers the changes made by the Belgium since October 2010, the date at which the legal and regulatory framework was previously assessed, to address the recommendations made in the 2010 report. It considers Belgium‟s progress report sent to the Peer Review Group - see report in annex 2 - concerning the legislative amendments adopted by Belgium to address the determination and recommendations relating to element B1 (access to information) and C1 (exchange of information mechanisms) which were previously assessed to be not in place and C2 (network of exchange of information mechanisms) previously assessed to be in place but in needs of improvements. Belgium was of the view that the amendments made to its legal framework were such that these three elements should now be determined to be in place. Consequently, Belgium has asked for a supplementary peer review report pursuant to paragraph 58 of the Methodology for peer reviews and non members reviews.

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The provision of water supply, sanitation and wastewater services generates substantial benefits for public health, the economy and the environment. Benefit-to-cost ratios can be as high as 7 to 1 for basic water and sanitation services in developing countries. Wastewater treatment interventions, for example, generate significant benefits for public health, the environment and for certain economic sectors such as fisheries, tourism and property markets. The full magnitude of the benefits of water services is seldom considered for a number of reasons, including the difficulty in quantifying important non-economic benefits such as non-use values, dignity, social status, cleanliness and overall well-being. Also, information about the benefits of water services is usually hidden in the technical literature, where it remains invisible to key decision-makers in ministries. This report draws together and summarises existing information on the benefits of water and sanitation.

Sanitation --- Sewage disposal --- Water-supply --- Economic aspects --- Economic aspects --- Economic aspects

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Export restrictions can be problematic if trading partners question either their conformity with international obligations or their possibly unintended negative impacts on others. Regulatory transparency can help. This paper examines how three multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs) incorporate transparency into their regulatory regimes: CITES (endangered species, especially tropical timber), the Basel Convention (hazardous e-waste), and the Kimberley Process (conflict diamonds). All three require producing countries to control exports of sensitive commodities, while allowing (Basel) or requiring consuming countries to control imports. Export and import restrictions are usually intended to affect relative prices, but in these three MEAs the ultimate objective is to limit the negative consequences, whether economic, environmental or societal, associated with improper exploitation of the covered commodities. In each case all trade in the target commodities ought to be covered, no export permits should be issued that do not meet the standards established by the MEA, and no imports should take place without the appropriate documentation. In order to have a consistent comparative basis for assessing the contribution of regulatory transparency to the success of these regimes, we use an analytic framework based on three major transparency principles: publication of the rules (the "right to know"); peer review by governments (monitoring and surveillance); and public engagement (reporting on results, and a role for non-governmental organisations, NGOs). The paper concludes with some observations about characteristics that appear to make transparency more or less effective.