Enhancing Access to Environmental Decision-making in the Danube Basin

1. Enhancing Access to Information and Public Participationin Environmental Decision-makingUNDP-GEF Danube Regional Project Component 3.4Magda Toth Nagy, Regional Environmental Center for Central and Eastern Europeon behalf of Jane Bloom Stewart, New York UniversityRuth Greenspan Bell, Resources for the Future

2. Conditions and Needs to Remove Barriers • Appropriate national legislation including laws, regulations, procedures and practical mechanisms for implementation • Institutional support and capacity • Capacity building for officials, NGOs and other stakeholders • Developing and sharing good practices • Providing assistance in methodologies and techniques

3. Reinforce Public Participation Provisions of WFD, other EU Directives and Aarhus Convention The purpose: • Assist officials /water managers in the Danube Basin to achieve the challenging requirements of the WFD and the Aarhus Convention, • Strengthen access to information and public participation to address priority sources of water pollution in the Danube River Basin (“hot spots”) Where and when? • Bosnia & Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Romania, Serbia & Montenegro (Sept.04 – Dec.06)

4. How? • Capacity building for officials tasked to implement WFD requirements • Targeted technical assistance • Legal, policy & practical measures • Field-test approaches at hot spot locations • Develop country-specific solutions, • but share experience regionally • Harmonized approach • Joint capacity building

5. Activities • Series of national consultations • Special reports concerning access to information and public participation improvements for ICPDR • Needs Assessments prepared, reviewed • National workshops conducted in 5 countries (February-April) • Discussed and agreed on country needs and priorities • Agreed on proposed country activities and demonstration sites • Study Tours for Officials and NGOs to US and the Netherlands (June, November) • To learn from experience of mature systems

6. Activities Regional workshops • To address common barriers and problems and define future joint activities of the project to address them • To build capacity to assist with implementation • To give possibility for the participants to share their experience and to learn from the experience of EU and other countries • Demonstration projects implemented by NGOs in cooperation with municipalities and agencies • At 5 selected water pollution hotspots locations • To achieve improvements at local level regarding public access to water related information and public participation in decision making on water issues • Dissemination of project results, models , lessons learnt in 5 countries and in Danube River Basin

7. Anticipated Results/Deliverables • Identified priorities and gaps • Measures developed to address them in participatory process • Capacity built at national and local level leading to improvements • Support implementation of measures for improvements by ICPDR • Successful good practice pilot projects • Practical country specific products developed and disseminated such as guidance materials, methodologies, manuals, etc.

8. Our thanks to the UNDP/GEF Danube Regional Project for their support and trust

9. Wish you a good kick off and hope for good cooperation with all of you! Starting Activities