Throughout the past year considerable progress has been made towards completion of the CEC’s planning and operational framework. This helped alleviate the impacts of delays caused by budget uncertainties in late 2005 and early 2006 on the implementation of important projects identified in the Council’s 2005– 2010 Strategic Plan and the 2005 Operational Plan for the CEC. The status and results of each project is described below in terms of the three main priorities of the Strategic Plan. With the recent completion of the 2006 Operational Plan, a Secretariat priority is to align planning and the operational cycle more effectively by striving towards earlier agreement on the 2007 plan and budget.