2001-2002 NGO grants

The partnership has entered its third year. During the first year we worked with NGOs in five CEE countries (Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Poland and Slovenia) to assess current experience in Activities Implemented Jointly and the overall national policies and reforms in support of GHG reduction. In the second year contract was concluded with six NGOs (new and continuing participants in Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania and Slovenia) to assess policies and measures to achieve the climate convention objectives, to implement outreach activities, and to complete surveys of national capacity for monitoring and reporting.

The topic for the third year's job is public access to information and participation in climate-related decision-making.

The main tasks of the NGOs will be to:

• Conduct a survey to assess access to information and participation in climate-related activities. The survey will potentially include access to information about GHG emissions, trends and impacts, government commitments and negotiating positions, decisions by COPs, information and participation in policies to mitigate climate change, and projects (AIJ).
• Implement national level outreach activities to promote public participation in climate related activities.

Similar to the previous year six grants were available this year (NGOs form Bulgaria, Estonia, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Slovalia).

Selection criteria included:

• Quality of the proposal
• Compatibility of REC/WRI partnership objectives and your NGO objectives and on-going climate-related activities;
• Familiarity with the discussions and current thinking about public participation and access to information as related to national climate programs;
• Applicant`s lasting interest and long term commitment to work on related issue.

The NGO grants were announced in August 2001. Partners will be conducting survey to assess the public participation in the climate related decision-making in their country. During the kick-off meeting held 11-12 September indicators of public participation and methodology to be applied in the survey had been deeply discussed.