Part III
Poland

Polski Klub Ekologiczny - Polish Ecological Club (PKE)
Okreg Wschodnio Pomorski - Eastern Pomeranian Branch

Gdansk, 20 November 1995

Ul. Powstancow Warszawskich 202
80-162 Gdansk
Poland
Phone: 48 58 472 860 or 48 58 472 458 or 48 58 471 651
Fax: 48 58 472 860

The person and his function in the NGO

Mr. Piotr Stepnowski - Project Manager and the former executive secretary of the Baltic Sea Secretariat in Poland, a branch from the Coalition Clean Baltic.

The NGO itself

The Polski Klub Ekologiczny (PKE) was founded in Krakow 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 consisted of several people and organizations founded in Krakow and the movement spread throughout the country to 14 Regional Branches and 120 local Circles.

Structure

The National Board of the PKE is in Krakow and has a chairman and two vice chairman. They are elected by the members of PKE every four years, and they make the general policy decisions for the PKE and are the employers of the PKE employees. Under the national level, there are 14 Regional Branches and 120 local Circles of the PKE. The Eastern Pomeranian Branch is one of these Regional Branches.

Objective(s) / Goal(s)

The PKE branch in Gdansk focuses on:

Main areas of activity of the PKE-Gdansk

The main areas of activity are collection and dissemination of information, education and training, protest actions and environmental monitoring. Important and local activities are nature protection actions, social and political activities and environmental technology and design. These activities depend on the projects that are currently running.

Resources

Human
There are two full-time and an average of six project leaders working at the branch of PKE in Gdansk. The amount of active volunteers depends on the kind and amount of projects that are running. About five people are regular volunteers. One Peace Corps volunteer from the USA is working as an organizational adviser. The number of members is about 350, but only 20% pay the membership fees regularly.
Money
The 1996 budget is about 50,000 USD. The financial sources of the PKE branch cover a broad area. They get grants from the Ministry of Environment, i.e. the National Fund for Environmental Protection and support from other NGOs; the Swedish Society for Nature Conservation and NGOs from Denmark. They also apply for and win grants from funding organizations. Occasionally they are sponsored by businesses, for example some help distribute their published books. Some money is earned by the selling of their own published materials and membership fees make up the remainder of the budget.
Expertise
Spoken languages in the PKE are Polish, English and Russian. The expertise on environmental issues and the strategical level is considered high, while the expertise on organizational level is growing.
Access to information
Available tools in the office are phone, fax and computer(s). E-mail is available as well and used a lot, most correspondence is by e-mail. The contacts with the local authorities are good. Most of the members are students and scientists, so the contacts with the scientific world are good. PKE also uses so called PKE-experts from the Gdansk universities.

External Relations and intensity of the contact

The external relations of the Eastern Pomoranian Branch of the PKE are mostly based on cooperation. The contacts with other NGOs are based on cooperation, but one or two years ago there was a lot of competition among environmental NGOs on the local level. One such example is the competition between The Ecobaltic Foundation and PKE and within the Coalition Clean Baltic. Of course there is a lot of national cooperation with the other PKE branches and very intensive international cooperation with the Scandinavian countries, especially Sweden. East-East cooperation happens on a low intensity, mostly within the Coalition Clean Baltic.

East-East Cooperation

PKE in Gdansk cooperates mostly with the Coalition Clean Baltic (CCB) members. The CCB was formally established in Helsinki in February 1990. Until now there has been no cooperation with Russia, the first contacts with St. Petersburg have just been established. Cooperation was secured because the two countries had common objectives and deal with the same environmental issues, in this case, the Baltic Sea environment.

Advantages / Motivation

Cooperation, and East-East cooperation, gives an organization more prestige. The ability for receiving and fulfilling bigger projects grows when an organization cooperates with other NGOs. East-East cooperation is also a chance to get more financial assistance. Sharing of information and access to information are two other important advantages of cooperation, especially within the CCB network. It must be pointed out the difference between 'real' and 'false' cooperation. False cooperation is doing one funded project with a certain partner. After the project is finished the cooperation stops, and the contact is terminated. Real cooperation has a wider range. There is an exchange of experience and information on more levels than of the current working project, good personal relations are established and cooperation between the organizations is long-term.

Problems / Obstacles

The power of CEE NGOs coalitions is not enough to be valuable. Large funds are necessary, so that most NGOs look first to Western countries for support. This is also happens within the CCB network, because this is primarily funded by Scandinavian countries. Communication obstacles, due to language barriers and other practical problems, like the lack of e-mail and/or good phone lines, is another big obstacle for East-East cooperation. In some cases bilateral East-East cooperation isn't valuable, because Western networks are already working on the organizations topic or in a certain region. The best tactic is to become a member of these networks then. The last problem to mentioned, is the 'culture of independence' in the NGOs. They don't want to admit to internal organizational problems, and keep their distance. Unfortunately, this doesn't make real cooperation very easy.

Surplus Value / Results of East-East cooperation

The benefits of East-East cooperation are that organizations get more funding and are able to share information that is mutually beneficial. It is our experience, that international cooperation is much easier than national cooperation. On the national level, competition for funding is fierce. NGOs are vying among themselves to be the best and the strongest. For this reason, fulfilling a national cooperation project is sometimes impossible. Internationally, competition between NGOs is usually not a factor.

Necessary features of a NGO for East-East cooperation

The most important features for East-East cooperation are a good communication network, an office with a secretary and sufficient funds. Having the same objective is the engine to cooperation but this objective should be on a very general level. A NGO should have existed long enough to have experiences to share, at least since 1990. The internal cultures and the background of the cooperative partners have to be more or less the same. National cooperation with for example the Polish League for Nature Protection (LOP) is difficult, because they are an old organization, founded before communism, with old structures, grants received only from the government and a work force based completely on volunteers. Newer nature conservation organizations are easier to work with. Also necessary for cooperation are good contacts with local authorities in both regions where East-East cooperation is occurring.

Possible reasons for others not to start East-East cooperation

It is possible in other organizations there aren't any people convinced of the necessity of cooperation with Eastern partners. Partners have to be chosen carefully you need to have trust in them, and personal contacts and friendships are very important for establishing this trust. There are many examples of failed cooperation projects. Often this is due to the egoism of the organization, they don't think that others are good enough to cooperate with, especially in CEE. A few years ago, every NGO was looking to the West for support, and East-West cooperation was established, but this was not real cooperation, only one way support. Currently In PKE, there is a plan for a local take over, this means that the funding must be granted by the Polish government and CEE funders. This is relatively easy for the PKE-Gdansk in comparison with other NGOs, because PKE-Gdansk often has several opportunities to meet NGOs from the Baltics because of the CCB network. This network is very beneficial for East-East cooperation.

Future of East-East cooperative behavior of the NGO

The PKE in Gdansk wants to broaden the East-East cooperation that they share with their current partners. They are also looking for new bilateral contacts within the Baltic region.

REC and East-East cooperation

This branch of the PKE applied for and succeeded in getting an Earmarked Grant from the REC, so the REC and the REC 's procedures are well-known. It is the opinion of PKE that the REC should be a coordinating body that facilitates East-East cooperation only when the partners can come together by themselves. The best cooperation begins after mutual trust is established and that takes time. It is a process that is facilitated by money, information and exchange of experiences, but these factors cannot be forced.

REC * PUBLICATIONS * BEYOND BORDERS - SIDE REPORT * POLAND

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