The third Meeting of Senior Officials was held on 17-20 September 1996 in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia; and adopted a landmark framework for NEASPEC. Among other things, the Framework elaborated the geographical coverage, programme objectives, the functions and responsibilities of senior officials in promoting environmental cooperation, as well as coordination, management and financial mechanism of such cooperation. This was subsequently reported as a major subregional initiative to global environmental forums, including "Rio+5", the Special Session of the United Nations General Assembly held in New York in June 1997, which undertook a comprehensive review of the implementation of Agenda 21.