Part II
Hungary
Central and Eastern European Workinggroup for the Enhancement of Biodiversity - CEEWEB
Budapest, 25 January 1996
- Kossuth u. 13
- H 3525 Miskolc
- Hungary
- Phone: 36 46 352 010
- Fax: 36 46 352 010
The person and his function in the NGO
- Mr. Gyulai Iván - Coach of CEEWEB
The NGO itself
CEEWEB was established in 1993. The idea for establishing a network
on biodiversity came from two Hungarian NGOs, the National Society
of Conservationists and Green Action together with an international
NGO from Brussels. Together with a proposed project for biodiversity
in the Carpathian basin from Western NGOs, all groups agreed finally
agreed on cooperation to establish a CEE wide network for biodiversity.
CEEWEB was granted by the European Parliament. The main reason
for establishment was cooperation among the CEE countries, focused
on biodiversity. Involved countries were at first Austria, Hungary,
Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, Macedonia, Albania, Bulgaria, Romania,
Ukraine, Lithuania, Latvia, Poland and Czechoslovakia, and lately
the Czech, Slovak Republics and Moldova.
Structure
The organization has a board consisting of three coaches, a secretary
and a treasurer. The board together with 14 focal points, in each
connected country, is the facilitating team of CEEWEB. The focal
points deal with the operating of CEEWEB on local level; they
distribute information and implement local projects within CEEWEB.
The organization works on both international and national level
in the 14 connected countries. Depending on the activities of
the focal point. the regional level can be involved.
Objective(s) / Goal(s)
To develop a common policy on biodiversity in CEE. The biodiversity
issue should become an issue in every level of society, so CEEWEB
wants to build awareness for this on political and public level
within CEE.
Main areas of activity of CEEWEB
Collection and dissemination of information is the main activity
of CEEWEB. However nature protection actions and environmental
education and training, based on the biodiversity topic are important
as well. The coordinating office in Miskolc deals with social
and political activities, including, public expertise and lobbying.
The ideal is to give CEE one voice on mondial scale for the biodiversity
issue.
Resources
- Human
- At the head office in Miskolc there are 2,5 paid jobs and about
20 volunteers. One of the employees is a Westerner from the United
States who is editing CEEWEBs newsletter and other publications.
Members are both NGOs and individuals, about 40 NGOs and 40 individuals
are members of CEEWEB.
- Money
- The budget in 1995 was 87,000 ECU. Grants for CEEWEB come from
the European Parliament, the Hungarian Parliament, some Western
NGOs and funding organizations like the REC. A small amount of
money is received from membership fees.
- Expertise
- Spoken languages in the office are Hungarian and English. The
expertise on environmental issues and the organizational level
are considered high. The organizational knowledge is one of the
strengths of CEEWEB. The expertise on strategic level depends
on the member groups in the different countries, and it is considered
medium.
- Access to information
- Phone, fax and computer(s) without email access are available.
Information is very important for CEEWEB, the working group is
in the middle of international information flow on biodiversity.
They inform their member groups with incoming international information,
but it depends on the member groups how interested they are and
what they do with the information from CEEWEB. Contacts with the
press are positive on international level, but on the national
level it dependent on the focal point's activities. This is a
problem since only a quarter of all focal points are active enough
and working on a satisfying level.
External Relations and intensity of the contact
The external relations of the CEEWEB are based on cooperation, especially with member NGOs. While lobbying contacts with the government(s) are not always cooperative, and sometimes conflictuous. The cooperation with Western NGOs was forced in the beginning because of the funding criteria of the European Parliament, now these contacts are within the working group (Austria) and more voluntarily. Relations with CEE (member)NGOs are cooperative and quite intensive.
East-East Cooperation
The CEEWEB was established to improve East-East cooperation. At first among the public and NGOs, and later between the governments of the countries themselves.
Advantages / Motivation
The main motivation for East-East cooperation between working
groups is to give CEE one voice in the mondial conferences and
policy making on the biodiversity issue. Lobbying is important
for CEE countries since they are not in a common union like the
European Union. The choice of biodiversity as main cooperation
issue was made because nature conservation and biodiversity is
a transboundary issue and most of the environmental NGOs in CEE
are focused on the nature in one way or another. This means that
biodiversity was and is the best umbrella to connect the NGO movement
in CEE. Furthermore, biodiversity is a very broad issue, it allows
CEEWEB to include a variety of topics in their mission, at the
same time including important social and economical topics in
CEE countries. Finally it is definitely easier to get money for
your projects and organization when there is East-East cooperation.
Problems / Obstacles
Cooperation within CEE at political and governmental levels is
not common. On this level, issues like minority problems and big
international investments like the Danube dams are big obstacles
for cooperation. This is happily not the case for NGOs and common
people, they are ready to cooperate but of course they also face
problems with establishing and maintaining East-East cooperation.
First of all the poor capacity of most CEE NGOs. They miss technical
skills in their offices, if they have offices at all. They fail
to get financial support especially for their overhead costs,
in the recent situation it has been really hard to run an organization.
Then there is a lack of common laws on NGOs in CEE and furthermore
language differences are a problem.
International cooperation is preferred by most funding organizations
and Western governments. But their criteria and standards for
giving grants are quite high, the NGOs are for example only considered
eligible when they have a Western partner or at least contacts
with Western NGOs. In this way, CEE NGOs are forced to cooperate
with the West. Additionally there is a preference for Western
partners because of the expectations of receiving more information
and financial support. Because of this 'looking to the west' and
eligibility criteria only a few people of the whole environmental
movement can be involved in international cooperation. Since not
so many well developed NGOs exist and within these groups not
so many people have the skills, like speaking 'conference English',
to deal with western NGOs. The relatively small group of people
connected to the international environmental movement has a good
position which they want to keep, and that's something to blame
them for.
The internal structure of most CEE countries is not stimulating
East-East cooperation among regional NGOs, since these countries
concentrate almost everything in their capital. This means that
only the NGOs in the capitals are able to get enough information
and because of that can be involved in international cooperation.
Surplus Value / Results of East-East cooperation
The biggest result is the ongoing existence of CEEWEB. This proves
that East-East cooperation is possible. Concrete results of the
existence of CEEWEB are their publications on biodiversity in
CEE and sustainable agriculture, the environmental training and
-materials, the design of Econnet and the bimonthly bulletin of
CEEWEB in English. The good information flow on biodiversity is
a good result.
Necessary features of a NGO for East-East cooperation
The will and/or wish to East-East cooperate is necessary, this
means they have to recognize the importance of East-East cooperation.
Then good technical and personal communication skills and a proper
infrastructure are needed. The cooperative project plans should
be clear. And of course other willing NGOs from CEE have to be
known. Success stories about and positive experiences with East-East
cooperation will motivate NGOs to start and/or go on with East-East
cooperation. When finally established it is important to give
every NGO within the 'network' a common identity. The cooperation
should be felt by the members as something desirable. This will
also attract new groups.
Possible reasons for others not to start East-East cooperation
Others simply don't have the will to cooperate, they are too busy
with themselves or dealing with local level topics. Or they miss
the capacity and communication skill needed to establish and maintain
East-East cooperation.
Future of East-East cooperative behavior of the NGO
In the future CEEWEB has to improve the level of activity of the
focal points. CEEWEB will go on with their East-East cooperative
network as long as they can find funds for it. Because of the
criteria of the European Union for granting CEEWEB and also other
NGOs in CEE will be forced to cooperate as much as possible, with
West and East. But in fact it will be more and more difficult
to cooperate just within CEE since prices are rising fast (phone
and traveling for example) and formerly free communication means
are to be paid now; the Green Spider network for example.
REC and East-East cooperation
CEEWEB applied and was awarded for an Earmarked Grant of the REC,
so REC and REC procedures are wellknown. REC should promote but
not force East-East cooperation. To establish real East-East cooperation
it should come from the felt need for it, but now it is established
because of financial force. The REC has to try to follow the bottom
up approach, to convince the NGOs of the importance of East-East
cooperation by training, success stories, experience sharing and
capacity building. In any case REC should take the place of NGOs.
REC is a facilitator and should be objective, without doing the
job the NGOs have to do themselves.
REC * PUBLICATIONS * BEYOND BORDERS - SIDE REPORT * HUNGARY
