1) Pre-filling of the questionnaire for the year 2020

To assist you in submitting the national report, the online reporting questionnaire has been pre-filled with the most recent information submitted to the Secretariat when this was considered appropriate. Pre-filling has been done for question 1 to 7 and tables 1, 2, 3 and 6.

      It is essential that you carefully verify that the information used for pre-filling is still valid and update it as necessary.

2) Alerts about incomplete or invalid answers

      Alerts are provided by the ERS to assist you in identifying incomplete or invalid answers.

When you save changes to the questionnaire, an alert also appears at the top of the page to highlight the pages that may contain incomplete or invalid answers. Within each page of the questionnaire, you can click on the “check for errors” button to identify incomplete or invalid answers.

Note that these alerts are intended to assist you in completing the report and do not prevent its submission. Please contact the Secretariat if you encounter difficulties in submitting the report (see item 5 below).

3) Importing data on the export (table 4) and import (table 5) of hazardous wastes and other wastes

The online reporting questionnaire provides you with several options for filling in tables 4 and 5.

      One option (option B) is for you to upload an Excel file and then import the uploaded data into the tables. For the data to be accepted by the ERS, please make sure to use the provided Excel file template and to follow the validation rules. Both are available for download on the pages of the online reporting questionnaire containing tables 4 and 5. Also available is a list of ISO codes for States recognized by the United Nations to assist you in filling out columns 7 and 8 of tables 4 and 5.

4) Uploading an Excel file containing the required information for tables 7, 8 and 9

      The online reporting questionnaire provides you with the option of uploading an Excel file for providing the information requested in tables 7, 8 and 9.

      An Excel template is available for download on the pages 15, 16 and 17 of the online reporting questionnaire containing tables 7, 8 and 9, respectively. You are invited to use this template for the Excel file you upload so as to facilitate comparability of the data provided.

      Please note that if you choose to upload an Excel file instead of filling in the table line-by-line, an alert will still appear indicating that the page contains incomplete or invalid answers (because the table is empty) but it should be disregarded in this case.

5) Submitting the report

When you are ready to submit the report, please proceed to the last page of the questionnaire and click on the “Submit” button that appears in the menu bar at the top of that page.

Note that the system will issue an alert about pages that may contain incomplete or invalid answers. The alert is intended to assist you in reviewing the report and does not prevent its submission. After making any necessary change to the report, please click again on the “Submit” button to submit the report. Please contact the Secretariat if you encounter difficulties in submitting the report.