Environmental Democracy in Ukraine

In May 2003, Ukrainian National Environmental NGO “MAMA-86” in partnership with Stakeholder Forum for Our Common Future (Great Britain) with financial support of UK Government Foreign and Commonwealth Office through Embassy of Great Britain to Ukraine, launched the project “Environmental Democracy in Ukraine”.

On August 2, 2003, at the House of Cinema, presentation of this project was made. Given that the necessity of strengthening the environmental management system and its improvement in the UNECE region, and at a national level as well, with an emphasis of the broader public participation in it was actively discussed at the Kyiv “Environment for Europe” Ministerial Conference, the “Environmental Democracy in Ukraine” project become a logical follow up of the “Kyiv-2003” project.

Project Goals:

• raising stakeholders’ awareness on environmental governance and natural resources management at all levels in Ukraine;
• attracting stakeholders’ attention to environmental governance, researching and discussing it;
• building the public capacity to impact environmental governance and natural resources management.

Major Components of the “Environmental Democracy in Ukraine” Project:

• Panel discussion “Improvement of Good Governance Principles in Environmental Protection and Sustainable Development” with experts’ involvement of all levels of environmental governance system — international, national, regional, and representatives of the public and production sector;
• Expert survey of the current situation regarding environmental governance and natural resources management in Ukraine (taking into account the Presidential Decree “On Resolution of National Security Council of Ukraine” dated June 6, 2003, “On Immediate Actions to Increase Effectiveness of Mineral Resources Management in Ukraine” dated June 10, 2003 N 485/2003);
• Regional workshops with involvement of all stakeholders;
• Developing recommendations on improving the environmental governance and natural resources management system;
• Preparing research of the environmental governance system and its publication as well as recommendations on its improvement;
• Press-conference to address the project outcomes.

The project is implemented at a national level and in four oblasts of Ukraine: Khersonska, Odeska, Luhanska and Ivano-Frankivska as well as in Kyiv.

Selection of regions was based on specific interrelationships between environmental, social and economic factors in them.

Seminar dedicated to governance effectiveness evaluation methods — August 2003

The project participants jointly with experts in environmental governance analysis worked on methodologies to evaluate governance effectiveness in the field of environmental protection and natural resources utilisation for Ukrainian experts and representatives of the project regions.

Expert survey — July-August 2003

Expert survey in the field of environmental governance, structure and effectiveness of natural resources management was carried out by the follows experts:

• Vitaly Zuev, Ph.D., “EcoPravo-Kharkiv”;
• Serhiy Kurykin, Minister of Environment and Natural Resources of Ukraine in 2001-2002;
• Oleksandr Mykytiuk, Local Environmental Action Programme of ISAR;
• Yevhen Khlobystov, Council for Productive Force Studies, NAS of Ukraine.

The expert survey aimed at measuring the environmenta governance and natural resources management system effectiveness in Ukraine at all levels and extent of taking into account the environmental considerations in socio-economic planning and management.

Regional round tables — September-October 2003

The aim of regional round tables was to discuss the experts’ findings and comment them in terms of an individual region as well as to involve the stakeholders in discussions. In the project framework, four regional round tables were held.

Final round table — October 2003

Activity was summarised at the final round table in Kyiv in October 2003 as focused on addressing expertise findings in the area of environmental protection/natural resources utilisation and comments produced at the regional round tables as well as making recommendations on improvement of the environmental governance mechanisms. Based on the seminar results, assessment of the environmental governance and recommendations on its improvement were published.

The project activity will be summarised and the findings published and broadly disseminated among governmental agencies, scientific institutions, production sector and NGO representatives and presented at the final press-conference.

Contact person:
Oksana Bilobran
“Environmental Governance in Ukraine” Project Coordinator
22, Mykhajlivska St. 01001, Kyiv
tel. (044) 278-77-49/278-31-01
fax: (044) 279-55-14
info@mama-86.org.ua