Annexes
Annex A
Defining the Public and NGOs
1. Public participation should mean just that: participation of the general public. As far as is practicable, decision-making processes should be open to participation by individual members of the public, irrespective of whether they belong to an organisation. This is readily achievable at the local level and can apply to some degree at all levels of decision-making.2. At regional, national or international levels of decision-making, for practical reasons (sheer numbers of people affected, the need for specialist expertise, costs of attending meetings and so on), the involvement of the public normally happens through non-governmental organisations (NGOs). Even at the local level, there are economies of scale which mean that individual members of the public are able to participate more effectively when they organise themselves into an NGO. For example, as a group they are in a position to carry out public fundraising events to pay for hiring legal or scientific expertise.
3. As NGO participation is increasingly recognised as a worthy objective at many levels and in many contexts, it is useful to identify the different kinds of bodies which may be involved and to differentiate between them as to why and how they should be involved.
4. According to one common usage, the term "NGO" refers to non-commercial public interest organisations, independent from government, whose primary purpose is to defend or promote a particular set of ideals (in this case, the ideals of protecting or promoting health and/or the environment). The existence of such groups generally depends upon the voluntary support of the general public or a membership base. They include environmental citizens' organisations (ECOs), consumer organisations and citizens' groups campaigning on health issues.
5. The term "NGO" is also used in a broader sense to encompass any organisation which is literally non-governmental. For the sake of clarity, participation of this broad range of bodies is better described as stakeholder participation. Stakeholders include a vast array of bodies with diverse needs, capacities, structures, motivations and degrees of political and financial leverage. As well as public interest NGOs, they include professional or trade associations, industrial federations, academic bodies, trade unions, and in some contexts even financial institutions. Local authorities, even though they are formally a manifestation of government, could also be considered to be stakeholders insofar as they are affected by, and are required to implement, governmental decisions rather than making them.
6. Stakeholders may or may not have the protection of health and environment as their primary objective and must reconcile their support in principle for that objective with other more or less compatible objectives (e.g. trade unions, with the goal of protecting the working conditions of their members; industrial federations, with the goal of protecting the long-term profitability of their members). They do however, by definition, each have a significant and legitimate interest in the issue under consideration.
7. Whereas the involvement of stakeholders from all parts of the spectrum is desirable, it is important to take into account their different motivations as well as the differences in their capacities, levels of resources, expertise, political influence and so on. There will also be differences in the degree to which they (or the interests they represent) are affected by a given decision-making process. In view of these differences, it is not only legitimate but desirable to differentiate in the ways in which the involvement of these different types of stakeholder is encouraged, and to make a distinction between public participation and stakeholder participation. For example, participation of commercial organisations in decision-making should not be considered public participation, though it is stakeholder participation.
8. Particular efforts need to be made to involve public interest NGOs. These groups exist as a manifestation of public concern about the issues around which they are formed. As well as being a source of expertise, they are, or should be, a "barometer" of opinion among the most concerned members of the general public, effectively functioning as the conscience of society on the issue in question. Their idealism exerts a constant pressure to make the world a better place. Insofar as they are democratically constituted and have open structures, their participation in many decision-making processes is the most practically achievable manifestation of "public participation."
9. Environmental health professionals play a crucial role in making public participation work. Being faced with the practical task of implementing official policies on the ground, they represent the interface between governments and the public.
10. The work of trade unions to promote the interests of workers in the areas of human rights, working conditions and occupational health and safety has resulted in better protection of workers' rights to information, to participation and to review of decisions in the workplace.
11. It is also important to seek the involvement of other major groups whose activities are, or may be, affected by decision-making, or which have relevant expertise, or whose cooperation could contribute to the effective implementation of decisions. One of the legacies of the UNCED conference in 1992 was an increased recognition of the importance of involving all stakeholders in the process of achieving sustainable development, and this has been taken up in various ways at other levels.
12. The need for gender equity is of paramount importance, and in most contexts this will mean preventing discrimination against women and actively encouraging their involvement. In most countries, women have the primary responsibility for taking care of children, the elderly and the disabled, including the victims of environmental disasters, and are well-placed to represent the interests of those who are not able to play an active role in public decision-making. It is therefore important to ensure that women are not under-represented in decision-making processes on environment and health.
13. In embracing the involvement of all stakeholders in decision-making, it is important to note that these will often include bodies whose activities cause or exacerbate the problems under consideration, or which have vested interests which oppose a preventive approach to solving problems. The cooperation of such bodies can be helpful and even essential in finding technical solutions and in the implementation of decisions. However, while it is important that an open dialogue exists between the decision-makers and those with most responsibility for causing the problems, it is equally important that the latter do not have sufficient influence to enable them to block solutions and that public decision-making remains firmly under the control of democratically mandated institutions of government.
Annex B
Member States of the WHO European Region
AlbaniaAndorra
Armenia
Austria
Azerbaijan
Belarus
Belgium
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Bulgaria
Croatia
Czech Republic
Denmark
Estonia
Finland
France
Georgia
Germany
Greece
Hungary
Iceland
Ireland
Israel
Italy
Kazakhstan
Kyrgyzstan
Latvia
Lithuania
Luxembourg
FYR Macedonia
Malta
Monaco
Netherlands
Norway
Poland
Portugal
Republic of Moldova
Romania
Russian Federation
San Marino
Slovakia
Slovenia
Spain
Sweden
Switzerland
Tajikistan
Turkey
Turkmenistan
Ukraine
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
Uzbekistan
Yugoslavia
