Panel 3
Environment
Download presentations from below:
Black Sea Joint Operational Programme 2007-2013 - Sorina Canea
GEF Small Grants Programme - UNDP Romania - Adriana Craciun
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The Black Sea Region needs to lay the bases for an economic viable future, lasting and environmentally attractive. The achievement of this aspiration requires that environmental issues are treated unitary in the whole Black Sea Basin. Civil society organizations, working together with national governments and international organizations, have a responsibility and an essential role to play in this framework through their capacity to cooperate and create partnerships on specific issues.
The Black Sea region has become an essential focus of preoccupation as a transit route for energy resources in the region. With the accession of Romania and Bulgaria to the European Union, the Black Sea has become a part of the environmental area of direct concern for the EU.
Many of the Black Sea countries’ economies are dependent (to bigger or lesser degree) of the use of raw materials and agriculture, which are either of a finite character or need continue investment and access on the external markets. Mass-exploitation of the natural resources creates unsustainable patterns of development and insolvable environmental problems which are much more difficult to cure than to prevent. Soviet-era or communist-type of industrial development has also created numerous economic, social and industrial problems.
There has been a need to bring up to date regional activities, as even regional processes which had been launched and are in course did not keep up with the latest evolutions in the area, and the new geography of the EU increases the chances that this need finds a more adequate response. In order to increase the efficiency of the policies in the region, the Black Sea Region states must concentrate their activities on the implementation of multilateral treaties and to put bases for long term functional strategic co-operation. Despite certain improvements in the last years on administrative and regulatory frameworks, there remain important problems between the countries in the region which limits the potential for regional cooperation. These problems must be treated first of all at regional level.
In order to achieve the goal of sustainable development and preservation of the environment in the Black Sea region, a range of issues need to be addressed by NGOs and public authorities:
• How can regional programmes be harmonized, both in the stage of conception and in that of implementation?
• How can resources be allocated more efficiently for implementation in useful time of the regional environment programmes?
• How can be ensured a maximum efficiency for the projects costs that take place at regional level?
• How can we foster communication focused on identification of the most efficient ways to respond to global environment challenge at regional level:
o climate change;
o biological diversity loss;
o desertification
• Are there any genuine participatory exercises at the local and regional stakeholder community level, with the purpose of creating innovative-sustainable communities? How can we launch genuine consultation processes and refine the existent ones?
• How can collaboration centered on environmental policies be integrated with sectoral policies for economic development at regional level?
Objectives of the panel:
• Overview of the environment situation and policies in the Black Sea region; mainstreaming environmental protection in sectoral policies for economic development;
• Debate on the role of civil society in influencing the environment agenda in the region; discuss the role of civil society in ensuring sustainable development, for example through advocating for transparency and accountability and through public policy capacity
• Presentation of good practices and initiatives at regional/national level that can be replicated at regional level;
• Identifying priority areas where NGO cooperation is possible (e.g. advocacy, biological diversity loss, industrial pollution and air pollution mitigation).
• What is needed in terms of European support and participation (bilateral, regional – Black Sea synergy)
