Transcript Greening the ENP Georgia project

Greening the ENP
Georgia project
implemented with support DG
Environment, in cooperation with
HBf and WWF EPO office
Manana Kochladze
Kety Gujaraidze
November 2006
ENP Process in Georgia
• In June 2004 the three South Caucasus
countries - Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan,
were included in Wider Neighbourhood Initiative
of the EU.
• In March 2005 EU presented the country report
and recommendations for Action Plan
preparation
• In October 2006 the EU and Georgian
representatives signed government and EC the
AP for 2007-2013 and defined priorities of
cooperation.
Action Plan
Action Plan encourages fulfillment of
Agreement on Partnership and Cooperation and
Georgia’s future integration in Europe’s
economic and social structures. Implementation
of the AP should significantly facilitate the
process of harmonization of Georgian
legislation, norms and standards with those of
the EU and this in itself, creates foundation for
economic integration, growth of trade,
investments and economy.
Greening the Action Plan
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Georgian government nor EC formally established the procedures of
public participation at the onset of the elaboration of the plan.
The governmental commission to develop Action Plan created a council
of experts, which included several public representatives.
In parallel, Georgian civil society representatives formed a coalition of
NGOs to provide recommendations for Action Plan. The coalition was
supported by Heinrich Boll Foundation, Eurasia Foundation and Open
Society Georgia Foundation.
After working for several months about 70 NGOs presented
recommendations concerning the AP, which the Georgian government
later called “an alternative action plan”.
Future lobby on different issues of alternative action plan was
undertaken on national and international level
Significant part of the recommendations presented by NGOs were taken
into consideration in the final version of the AP.
Green Alternative actively participated in process and lead elaboration of
recommendations in Sustainable development, Environmental Protection
and Poverty Reduction part;
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Within the frame of NGO coalition work GA actively continue to
assess the different drafts of the Action plan and submitted
comments to Government and EC representatives
To facilitate more understanding about challenges and trends of ENP
implementation in Georgia was organized number of workshops for
Georgian Environmental groups with support of Heinrich Boell
foundation Caucasus Office.
The first workshop overview EU institutions and ENP process, as well
as challenges its implementation. During the Workshop was decided
to focus “Greening the ENP Georgia Project” implementation to
assess the ongoing situation in Environmental governance and
cases to be explored, to have clear benchmark for the future
process;
follow up workshops was dedicated to detail reviews of the research
and case studies that has been done by Green Alternative and
experts hired.
As a result the report “Environmental Governance in Georgia
and How Can the EU Contribute to Its Strengthening” was
prepared
In parallel was analyzed the High Level Group Report on TENs
enlargement and presented possibilities for public participation. As a
result number of Georgian Groups developed specific comments to
commission with regards of the EU with support of Green Alternative
Use different media opportunity to highlight importance of Georgia EU action plan and its coherence with different existing plans in
Georgia and vice versa (e.g. EBRD Country Strategy Comments)
Together with number of foundations HBf, Eurasia and OSI, GA
representative takes the part in board of ENP newsletter that is
prepared in Georgian and English and address acute issues of ENP
implementation.
Environmental Governance in Georgia and How Can
the EU Contribute to Its Strengthening
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To conduct research was used
the seven elements of
environmental governance
defined in the joint report
drawn up by four
international organizations in
2003: United Nations
Development Program,
United Nations Environment
Program, World Bank and
World Resources Institute.
• Those elements are:
(1) legislation and institutional
setting,
(2) participation right,
(3) distribution of competences,
(4) transparency and
accountability,
(5) property rights,
(6) market and finances
• The report identifies two stages in the development of environmental
governance system in Georgia: (i) 90-ies and the period before the
2003 Rose Revolution and (ii) the period after the Rose Revolution
up until now.
• During the first period of development of environmental governance
the elements of new environmental governance system were formed
after the collapse of the Soviet system. Institutions and legislation
were created that more or less included the main principles of good
environmental governance: transparency, participation and
accountability.
• After the revolution development of environmental governance
characterized with frequent institutional and legislative changes that
are directly related to the government’s drive towards complete
liberalization and deregulation of economy and the desire to increase
the state budget incomes with all means (including more exploitation
of natural resources and changing the ownership status).
• These changes were not made in a transparent way and in
consultation with the stakeholders. As a result of these changes the
opportunities for public to be informed and to participate in the
decision-making were even more limited. Moreover, in parallel to
limiting the access to information and public participation, these
changes also limited the access to justice.
EU-Georgia AP and Env. governance
What needs to be done
• Periodic evaluation of country’s environmental governance and
the progress made towards achieving the goals of the ENP in
environmental governance especially in legislation approximation
field.
• It is necessary to create open and transparent mechanisms of
public participation in the format of structured consultation with
EC and the Georgian government, this should be done during the
elaboration, implementation and monitoring of the activities
indicated in the Action Plan and ENPI.
• Guaranteeing public participation and organization of public
meetings of disputable issues are necessary for the
implementation of the AP. The particular attention must be paid
to effective expenditure, direct benefits for the population of the
country and minimal damage to environment and the pubic.
• Evaluation of the implementation of the AP must be based on
extensive consultation process so that subjective, or unrealistic
evaluations caused by the lack of information can be avoided.
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Projects and programs implemented with the assistance of EU (both
through ENPI and EIB) must unconditionally comply with the
environmental policy requirements and standards of EU, especially in
the spheres of energy and transport:
Horizontal instruments existing in EU must become integral parts of the
AP implementation.
Any program must be preceded by strategic environmental assessment,
not to mention the necessity of integrated social and environmental
assessment at the project level.
EC should have an administrative resource, which will assist Georgian
government in planning and implementation of specific projects in
accordance to the directives of EU.
As the infrastructural programs are usually implemented faster than
environmental programs, it is necessary to avoid negative impact both
on the existing and planned protected areas, for example, on the
protected areas included in the Emerald Network (which is an analogue
of Natura 2000) and the areas protected under Ramsar Convention.
Due to the close interrelationship between poverty and environmental
governance, we believe that: Based on public consensus, the projects
must be identified within the AP that would first of all satisfy the
interests of the local communities based on the principles of sustainable
development.
A balance should be established between mega-projects and smallscale projects directed at specific groups
EC should pay more attention to monitoring of Georgia’s compliance to
international conventions, including Aarhus Convention.
Future plans
• Participate and monitoring process of
elaboration time table and detailed action plan
for AP
• Political dialogue between the government, MPs
and civil society around the issues raised within
the report, as well as other fields
• Main topics: forestry, water, infrastructure,
energy, mining and natural disaster
management
• Monitoring implementation of ENP AP (by EU,
Governments and IFIs) in 2007-2008
• Foster public participation in decision-making
with regards of ENP AP