PRESS RELEASE NGOs for a Cleaner Danube

 

(Szentendre, Hungary, September 09, 2004) The Regional Environmental Center for Central and Eastern Europe (REC) is pleased to announce that, with the financial backing of the United Nations Development Programme – Global Environment Facility (UNDP-GEF), support will go to 65 selected projects, involving over 70 non-governmental organisations (NGOs), to the tune of almost USD 700,000. This granting programme — launched for NGOs working throughout the Danube watershed— aims to reduce pollution in the river from nutrient and toxic substances. Projects will be implemented in 11 Danube Basin countries: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Moldova, Romania, Serbia and Montenegro, Slovakia, Slovenia, and Ukraine. Implementation of the selected grants began in September of this year and will continue until September 2006. Five of the projects supported are regional in scope, involving NGOs from more than one country. These projects focus on transboundary cooperation, regional networking, stakeholder cooperation, best practices in agriculture and the basin/sub-basin approach to decision making. The other 60 projects supported are national or local in scope. They take a sectoral approach to reducing nutrient and toxic substance pollution, focusing on: Agriculture: Promoting best available practices (e.g. prevention of soil erosion), fertiliser and pesticide reduction, eco-farming methods and sustainable rural development; Municipalities: Advocating better urban wastewater collection and treatment, constructing reed bed wastewater treatment plants, promoting better household waste management; Industry: Promoting best available practices/technologies, environmental management systems, consumer awareness raising and cleaner production. Many of the supported NGO initiatives address land use issues. NGOs are planting appropriate vegetation, restoring flood plain forests or abandoned lands, and protecting natural flood plains and wetland habitats. Another common theme is water management and policy, including the Water Framework Directive and the public participation approach to decision making. This small grants programme is a component of the Danube Regional Project (DRP), launched on December 1, 2002 as the next phase of UNDP-GEF's long-term commitment to achieving environmental health in the Danube River Basin. The main goal of the DRP is to improve environmental quality by strengthening the structures and activities already in place in the basin to deal with pollution and environmental degradation. This programme is managed by the REC, through its head office in Hungary, in cooperation with its offices in the countries affected and the autonomous REC Ukraine and REC Moldova organisations. The Danube Environmental Forum NGO, International Commission for the Protection of the Danube River (ICPDR) and independent experts were involved in the formulation and promotion of the grants call, as well as the selection of projects. The REC, through its network, will monitor implementation of the NGO projects at the national and regional levels throughout the coming two years. A major criterion for success will be their impact on nutrient and toxic substance pollution. For more information, please contact: Entela Pinguli Project Manager Tel: (36-26) 504-000 E-mail: epinguli@rec.org or Zsolt Bauer Head of Communication Tel: (36-26) 504-069 E-mail: zsbauer@rec.org

Contact information Back to Press Releases