EECCA ENVIRONMENTAL STRATEGY
The 4th “Environment for Europe” conference in Aarhus
(1998) acknowledged that the urgency of environmental problems in the New Independent
States (NIS) required additional international assistance to this region. It declared the
new policy for “Environment for Europe” process: refocusing on the NIS. However the
debates in the preparations to the 5th “Environment for Europe” Ministerial Conference
in Kyiv led the international community to the conclusion that no real refocusing of aid
towards NIS took place.
Believing that the major reason for that was the lack of clear vision on
the development of the region among the countries of the region, Ukraine and Georgia
initiated the development of an Environmental Strategy for the region. On 16 April 2002 in
Hague, the Environment Ministers of 12 sovereign states – Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus,
Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyz Republic, Moldova, Russian Federation, Tajikistan,
Turkmenistan, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan – agreed on the actions which would allow speeding
up environmental reforms in these countries and strengthening the position of these states
in European and international cooperation.
Non-governmental organizations took active part in the development of the
Strategy starting from the time of the origins of the idea and submitting comments to
every version of the draft document later on. During discussions part of NGOs claimed that
it was more appropriate to develop a Sustainable Development Strategy. Another part denied
the need to draft any new strategy and proposed to analyze the reasons why the
implementation of existing documents failed. A group of NGOs doubted the possibility to
implement any program within the framework of the region. Some NGOs in Moldova and Ukraine
objected the participation of their governments in the Strategy because such participation
contradicted to the policies of these states aimed at accession to the European Union.
As a result, the vast majority of NGOs have supported the idea to draft an
Environmental Strategy. They believed that the Strategy could contribute to the solution
of environmental problems in the region by identifying the priorities for actions based on
East-West cooperation in the “Environment for Europe” framework.
The European ECO-Forum became an official participant of
the East-West Environmental Partnership launched at the World Summit on Sustainable
Development. The EECCA Environmental Strategy turned to be a major component of the
partnership.
In December 2002 – January 2003, the EAP Issue Group of
the European ECO-Forum organized a wide consultation process with support of the UK
Government and United Nations Development Programme. An electronic discussion of the draft
Strategy was organized. National multi-stakeholder seminars in all countries of the region
and a seminar of EECCA NGOs were held. All together, around 700 organizations took part in
the discussion.
NGOs stressed the need to significantly improve the text
of the Strategy, which existed at that moment. NGOs were concerned that the Strategy would
not work unless mechanisms of implementation, action plan with quantitative indicators and
timeframes and the public control mechanism over implementation of commitments made by our
ministers in Kyiv are defined. NGOs suggested concrete wordings throughout the text of the
Strategy. The majority of those wordings were taken into account.
At the “Environment for Europe” Conference in Kyiv
(21-23 May 2003) the Environment Ministers of UNECE countries endorsed the Strategy. Many
governments highly appreciated the effective and constructive participation of
non-governmental organizations and European ECO-Forum in the drafting process. The
Strategy will develop as a partnership initiative of all countries of the UN Economic
Commission for Europe in order to assist in improving the state of environment in 12
countries at the territory of former USSR. In their statements in Kiev, Denmark, the
United Kingdom, the World Bank, the Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development,
as well as EECCA countries, expressed their support to the Strategy. In her speech, Olga
Ponizova, Eco-Accord/European ECO-Forum’s EAP Issue Group Coordinator, stressed that
despite the diversity of opinions, the majority of NGOs are convinced that the development
of the Strategy would contribute to the improvement of environmental situation in UNECE
region as a result of cooperative efforts between EECCA countries, between East and West,
and between all stakeholders.
|
