Spotlight

The Danube River basin, Hungary and Slovenia

NGO-government partnership builds stewardship of environment

The Danube is one of the most polluted rivers in Europe, accumulating industrial, agricultural and household waste along its path to the Black Sea. A UNDP-GEF project has helped to build environmental citizenship and generate public demand to address transboundary pollution in the Danube.This project was based on the belief that active public participation in environmental decision-making is the key to change.

This pilot project was carried out in Hungary and Slovenia by the Regional Environmental Centre for Central and Eastern Europe, Resources for the Future, and New York University School of Law. It was developed to implement the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe’s Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-Making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters (known as the ‘Aarhus Convention’). The NGO community in Central and Eastern Europe was active in drafting this convention and in urging their countries (and the European Union) to sign and ratify it.

In this project, Hungarian and Slovenian NGOs worked in partnership with government officials to build laws, practices and institutions to help meet their own country’s commitments to the Aarhus Convention.This NGO-government partnership has helped build credibility for the governments, which shared detailed, timely, and accurate documentation about environmental quality, enforcement and policy. Information is the lifeblood of environmental decision-making, and information obtained as a result of this project increased the power of NGOs and ordinary citizens. They used it to conduct information campaigns and influence public policy. Information has also helped individuals understand their responsibilities in both creating and reducing pollution.

One of the most active NGOs in this project was Hungary’s Environmental Management and Law Association, which drafted a practical manual for government officials to help them respond to citizen requests for environmental information. Other NGOs developed a citizen’s handbook with sample letters, practical instructions on how to submit requests and advice on how to protest against incomplete responses and find information on the Internet. Slovenian NGOs helped create consensus about more appropriate interpretation and implementation of existing legislation and identifying amendments needed to fully implement the Aarhus Convention’s access-to-information provisions.

In the long run this effort has enhanced the quality of environmental laws and increased public respect for them in these two countries. It is also likely to influence other Danube basin countries. Already the project has demonstrated that public support is a critical part of the solution.