Part III
Poland
Polski Klub Ekologiczny - Polish Ecological Club
Budapest, 13 December 1995 / Kraków 18 January 1996
- National Board Office
- Ul. Pilsudkiego 8 II p
- 31-109 Kraków
- Poland
- Phone: 48 12 218 852
- Fax: 48 12 218 852
- E-mail: uedabrow@cyf-kr.edu.pl
The persons and their function in the NGO
- Mr. Tomasz Terlecki - Regional Coordinator CEE Bankwatch Network and Board Member (East-East cooperation part).
- Mrs. Magda Stoczkiewicz - CEE Bankwatch Network Coordinator for Poland (The NGO itself).
The NGO itself
The Polski Klub Ekologiczny (PKE) was founded in
Kraków in 1980 during the early days of the Solidarity
opposition movement and is widely recognized as being the first
legally established independent, non-profit, environmental NGO
in the former socialist-block countries of Central and Eastern
Europe. The founders of PKE were several people and groups, starting
in Krakow and spreading the movement throughout the country in
14 Regional Branches and 120 local Circles.
Structure
The National Board of the PKE in Krakow has a chairman
and two vice chairman. They are elected by the members of PKE
every three years, and make the general policy decisions for the
PKE and are the employers of the PKE employees. Under this national
level there are 14 Regional Branches and 120 local Circles of
the PKE. The PKE is a member of Friends of the Earth International
(FOEI), The World Conservation Union (IUCN) and the Environmental
Liaison Centre International (ELCI).
Objective(s) / Goal(s)
The goal of the PKE activities is the practical implementation
of the true concept of sustainable development; realizing steady
improvement in environmental conditions and the creation of awareness
throughout all of society through education that quality of life
is dependent on achieving a balance between technological development,
humanistic values and wise stewardship of the earth's natural
resources.
Main areas of activity of the Polish Ecological Club
Every branch of the PKE gives its own accents for
the areas of activity. In general the PKE is dealing with all
kinds of activities in the environmental field. Important are
the collection and dissemination of information and education
and training by publishing and distributing books, booklets and
pamphlets. Social and political activities like organizing public
pressure and lobbying activities on regional, national and even
international scale are another important area of activities for
the PKE. The environmental topics of the PKE are mainly environmental
education, waste management, water management, national parks,
law, organic agriculture, transportation, publications and health.
There are Club commissions for each topic. The National Board
in Kraków is the main structure of PKE, which also has
its own projects, like being a leader in the international Bankwatch
Project and a membership improvement campaign.
Resources
- Human
- At the National Board of the PKE in Kraków
2 part-time and 7 full-time employees working. About 2 volunteers
are regularly helping them. Besides groups of volunteers can be
mobilized, like for example schoolpupils or people connected with
a certain project. In the branches of the PKE a lot of volunteers
are helping. About a year ago a peace corps volunteer was working
on the National Board, he was an advisor and he prepared some
project proposals. The PKE has about 4000 members, but only a
few are active and far not all pay their membership fee. In the
future this situation should improve by the membership project
that is running right now.
- Money
- The 1995 budget of the National Board of PKE was
approximately 200,000 USD. The main sources for this money are
funds like the UN PHARE program, the Rockefeller funding organization
and several others. Governmental bodies sponsoring PKE are among
others the Voivodship (county) environmental fund, and the National
Environmental Protection Fund. Small amounts of money are coming
from PKEs own activities, like selling books and the membership
fees.
- Expertise
- Spoken languages in the PKE National Board are Polish,
English, Swedish and Russian. The expertise on environmental topics
and the organizational level is considered high. The strategy
of the PKE as a whole is set every three year at a meeting of
representatives of all branches, a consequence of this procedure
is that the expertise on strategical level in the National Board
itself is not as high as for the other topics.
- Access to information
- Available tools in the office are phone, fax and
computer(s) with an E-mail access. The contacts of the PKE in
Poland are very good, since PKE is the one of the biggest and
most well-known environmental NGOs in Poland. National policy
makers are asking the PKE for their opinion, if there is a NGO
voice requested. If not, PKE is able to get their information
from some members of Parliament that are cooperating with the
group, or on a more slightly way.
In the near past the PKE organized some successful
press conferences. The contacts with the press in general are
quite good.
External Relations and intensity of the contact
The external relations of the PKE National Board,
this also means the PKE as a national organization, are mostly
based on cooperation. Conflicts can appear with the Ministry of
Environment for certain topics, for example the Mochovce nuclear
powerplant. However usual the contact is cooperative. There is
no common contact with environmental businesses. For the NGO community
in Poland the mutual contacts are based on cooperation, while
also competition is mentioned. The latter mostly because of personal
features of the NGOs leaders. International cooperation of the
PKE is with western and eastern NGOs; within several networks
like for example Friends of the Earth International and the Bankwatch
Network. Until now these contacts are not that intensive, for
the future this should improve at least to a more regular exchange
of information with all involved NGOs.
East-East Cooperation
The Polish Ecological Club is cooperating with almost
all countries in CEE. The best East-East cooperation exists among
the countries of the CEE Bankwatch Network which consists of Estonia,
Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary and
Romania. For the former Soviet Republics and the more southern
countries the cooperation is on a low level, this means that there
exists some contacts, but no joined projects or regular information
and experience sharing. PKE is also member of some world-wide
umbrella organizations like Friends of the Earth International.
The history of PKEs East-East cooperation depends mainly on willing
persons; the PKE has no official policy for this cooperation.
But since they are open for it, interested PKE people will always
ask other persons (from other environmental NGOs) in CEE to cooperate
with them, especially when a certain project requires this cooperation.
Advantages / Motivation
First of all the sharing of information and even
more important the exchange of experience is a big motivation
for cooperation in general, so also for East-East cooperation.
Second the right representation of CEE on mondial level needs
East-East cooperation, the CEE environmental NGOs have to work
together to represent the CEE region stronger and more effective
on mondial conferences. Up to now the Western countries were more
or less representing the CEE environmental movement. For the future
East-East cooperation can give a better and more clear representation
of CEE, set next to the West. The third motivation for East-East
cooperation is the existence of common social conditions and environmental
problems among the CEE countries. Next to this point the existence
of transboundary problems makes East-East cooperation on these
topics necessary.
And maybe the most important personal reason for
East-East cooperation is that it is fun to meet other people and
other cultures from neighboring countries.
Additional it should be mentioned that the advantage
of East-East cooperation over East-West cooperation is that East-East
cooperation is more likely to be fair cooperation, because most
of the time East-West cooperation is not on a level of equality,
especially on the financial side.
Problems / Obstacles
A big obstacle is the lack of money for maintaining
common contact with a cooperative partner. Since for most NGOs
their funds are coming with the projects they do, funding organizations
pay for a certain project and after the project is finished there
is no money for maintaining contacts with possible former project
partner(s). We have to keep in mind that cooperation on a certain
project is something else than ongoing cooperation between two
or more organizations. For this point the PKE is in a better position
than most other environmental NGOs, because the PKE earns a low
but stable income out of own activities. This means that for
example in the East-East cooperative CEE bankwatch project the
PKE the coordinating and financial responsible NGO is. For the
PKE this means a lot of extra work, frustration and of course
a pressing responsibility towards funders.
Another obstacle, though connected with the above
mentioned, is the missing of enough administration capacity in
most NGOs, so it is difficult to contact them.
Even the low level of East-East cooperation now is
a reason for the slow development of it, because people simply
do not know each other, so how can they cooperate? And for good
cooperation it is not enough to know each other only by name;
trust has to grow, especially with bordercrossing cooperation,
because people are more suspicious to people from another country.
Inside Poland everybody knows everybody in the Environmental Movement,
this is not the case for groups in the neighboring countries.
Cultural problems are especially the language barriers
in the CEE region. Formerly Russian could be the spoken language,
but now nobody wants to speak Russian, while English still is
no common language for most of the people in CEE. A cultural-historical
problem is the refusal of some people to speak with people from
the neighboring country. This is sometimes the case between Poland
and Russia and also between Estonia and Russia. Although the environmental
movement is apart from historical problems and nationalism, these
two play a role sometimes. Especially when you are going to the
East; the more to the East the more problems you will have, because
of the increasing amount of differences between the people there
and yourself. But positively the splitting up of Czechoslovakia
did not give any problems with cooperative partners of the PKE
until now.
Finally also the political situation in a country
can be a problem for establishing East-East cooperation, in particular
this is the case for cooperation with Ukraine, since it is 'necessary
to put a guard with a big gun in front of the office which you
want to set up in East-East cooperation'.
Surplus Value / Results of East-East cooperation
An unexpected result of East-East cooperation is
the fact that PKE can really help the development of the environmental
NGOs in other countries, especially in less developed countries
from this point of view. Then there are the concrete results
of a joined project, for example all the progress reports originated
of the partners of the CEE Bankwatch project coming in at the
PKE office.
Necessary features of a NGO for East-East cooperation
First of all the administrative capacity of an NGO
has to be big enough to deal with all communication needed for
common contacts with the East partners. For establishing East-East
cooperation personal face-to-face contacts are the most important,
so there must be a facilitator arranging meetings, introducing
people to each other encouraging them and organizing social events
to establish good personal contact. The ice has to be broken and
then people need to get trust in each other. Only with a lot of
trust in the project leader(s) of the cooperation partner another
project leader will step into a joint project.
Actually the CEE countries need 10-15 year to develop
a real NGO movement with more clear goals. Because cooperation
just for the cooperation makes no sense.
Possible reasons for others not to start East-East cooperation
A lot of things can be mentioned, like: no resources,
no shared issue and/or no clear goal of the own NGO. Only with
clear goals a NGO will start searching for other groups with the
same goal, then it is naturally to look for partners to reach
your goal.
Further, the fact that a lot of groups still do not
know each other makes it impossible to cooperate.
The last point is maybe a cultural influence, namely
that a lot of people in CEE are afraid to be a leader, they are
afraid of taking responsibilities. The culture in the group is
that people wait to be asked for a certain position, because 'you
are an egoist if you want to be the leader'.
Future of East-East cooperative behavior of the NGO
East-East cooperation will be more and more in the
future. The environmental movement in CEE has to develop itself
and will develop towards stronger organizations with more clear
goals. And with a clear goal in your mind it is natural to search
for other groups with the same goal to be able to reach it more
efficiently. Future cooperation will be effective and organized
naturally. This will be inside the country (internal horizontal
cooperation), as well as in the international field.
REC and East-East cooperation
The PKE in Krakow succeeded in getting an Earmarked
Grant from REC for their international 'bankwatch project'. So
REC and REC procedures are well-known. In the field of East-East
cooperation REC should be an Eastern facilitator. This might mean
organizing conferences and meetings where people from the environmental
movement in CEE can meet each other in a constructive and easy
way. REC should take much more care for advertising the meetings
they organize and bringing people together in a pleasant way.
A good example is the winnersmeeting of the Earmarked Grants winners,
but this should be better organized. Maybe REC should set aside
money for organizing small environmental NGO meetings in CEE with
low expectations.
A grant path only for East-East cooperative projects
is too risky. The big problem with that is that very few will
respond, because NGOs do not dare to start a big East-East cooperative
project with a lot of money involved, since failing is deadly
for a fund dependent organization and the chance for failing is
big in the same time.
REC * PUBLICATIONS * BEYOND BORDERS - SIDE REPORT * POLAND
