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The Danube Regional Project enters its second phase

 

The UNDP/GEF Danube Regional Project began in December 2001 in order to establish and strengthen regional approach and environmental networks of governments, regions, communities and NGOs of the countries in the Danube River Basin



Credit: ICPDR
DRP office overlooks the Danube River, but the Project team don’t have much time to enjoy the view

The Project is part of UN's long-term commitment to achieving sustainability in water management. After the first phase, which focused on the analysis of national policies, legislations and institutions and the building of networks, the Danube Regional Project has entered its second – and last – phase dedicated to implementation, information and evaluation.

"People think it might be just a question of funding the building of the right type of ecologically suitable water plant, but our work goes much further,” says Andy Garner, an American living and working in Vienna. Andy is the Project's Environmental Specialist. His degree in environmental policy and management and his work experience have taught him that "to turn a river system around takes 25 years and a lot of small steps in a very delicate and long-term process". The first step, says Andy, is to get individual governments to think beyond their country's borders. "In our case, too, it took some time before the single governments started "thinking Danube Basin" and understanding the impact one country’s acting or non-acting can have on its neighbours and even on places thousands of kilometres away down the river. When we started the Project, we thought it would be hard to reconcile all the different interests in the region but, fortunately, there has been an enormous change in the heads of the people since then. And that is what our project is about - bringing about change".

The Danube Regional Project does not fund specific water clean-up projects; the Project staff bring people and authorities together and organise trainings, give advice and institutional support, monitor ongoing projects, and offer a grants programme established under the Project. The Project's main partner, though not the only one, is the ICPDR, which pursues networking on a governmental level but "we enforce communication on all possible levels,” says Ivan Zavadsky, who came to Vienna from Slovakia, his home country, to serve as Project Manager. "We cooperate with municipalities, industrial and agricultural sectors and NGOs – groups of people who are personally interested in improving the environment they live in. And we have the impression that this was a good way to strengthen the civil society in some countries”.

One of the focal points of the Danube Regional Project is to support the countries in the Lower Danube: Moldova, Ukraine, Serbia-Montenegro and Bosnia- Herzegovina, which get limited resources from the EU and in fact need a lot of support in order to fully play their part in the regional cooperation. These countries do not only get funding from the Project to attend trainings - all sectors are invited to participate, to establish their own priorities. The Danube Regional Project assists them in developing their own capacities and processes. "We plant ideas, make them circulate and stay around long enough to see if they work or need adjustment – then we retire slowly. Sustainability is our focus,” says Zavadsky, "and we want to make sure that the institutions established are strong enough to carry on the ideas once our Project is finished in 2006”.

Since the UNDP/GEF takes a global view and recognizes many regions that need to be supported, the Danube Regional Project might be the last in the region to be financed by UNDP/GEF. On the other hand, UNDP/GEF is an important factor in Southeastern Europe. Its position is unique in the sense that it has a huge moral authority in these countries that had for years been dominated by Moscow and are now undergoing a complete and often painful process of transition towards democracy and market economy. Over the past few years, there has been a change in the level of participation; while previously the Upper Danube countries tended to dominate the discussions, all countries now feel equal and participate actively in the process.

The Danube Regional Project office is situated in the UN-compound in Vienna overlooking the banks of the Danube River. But the six people working on the Project have little time to enjoy the view. "We have worked hard over the past two years on planning, investigating, preparing, structuring our work to build up a network. Now it is time to take a look around, to communicate about our work to the public," says Project Administrator Kari Eik, a Norwegian trained in political sciences. Same as Andy Garner, Kari Eik talks enthusiastically about her work and what her team hopes to achieve. Both Project team members agree that "we are not a bank, we don’t want to be bureaucratic; we want to be as open as possible to all people and authorities to implement a healthy environment in the Danube River Basin. Danube Regional Project is not a mechanical thing; it’s management, communication, bringing all kinds of people together, you know, environmentalists with ministers of industry. There is a high potential”.

Since communicating to the public about the Project now takes centre stage, the Project supports the establishment of Danube Day as one way to achieve that goal. Danube Day, which is launched for the first time this year to mark the 10th anniversary of the signing of the Danube River Protection Convention, will be celebrated throughout the Basin on June 29th this year with various public events and activities accompanied by a strong media presence. It should become institutionalised as a regular annual event.

The Danube Regional Project has a sister project based in Istanbul – the Black Sea Regional Project. As Andy Garner emphasizes: "Every river basin in the world has similar structures in spite of some regional variations. Every basin, no matter by how many countries it is shared, has to set priorities, deal with a certain ‘water budget’, find structures. The countries sharing it need to learn from each other, compromise, and - most importantly - ‘think basin’ as we like to say. We have learned a lot from the situation in the Danube Basin and we can now develop a model and that could be used in other river (and sea!) basins”.

Ursula Sova

Further information:
www.icpdr.org/undp-drp