Table of Contents 1. Background 2. Mission 3. Vision 4. Strategic Objectives 5. Stakeholder Related Objectives    5.1 Governments    5.2 Non Governmental Organizations    5.3 Business Sector    5.4 Local Governments    5.5 Other Stakeholders 6. Organisational Development 7. Funding   1. Background REC was established in 1990 as Hungarian foundation by the US, European Community and Hungary as an independent, non-advocacy, not-for-profit organization offering information, advice, cooperation and funding to environmental organizations in Central and Eastern Europe. For ten years now, the REC has been promoting regional cooperation between NGOs, governments, businesses, academic institutions and the media in Central and Eastern Europe, supported mainly by donor countries. In the first years of its existence, REC primarily supported the non-governmental organizations in the region. This was justified by the facts that it was considered the most effective support to the democracy building processes in the region, and that governments were undergoing constant change, businesses were mainly government owned and the NGOs were facing decline because of the lack of funding base. In this phase, REC performed its role of support and capacity building for NGO, built a strong network of relations with the CEE NGO community, but remained distant from the governments in the CEE. In 1993, a new governance and management structure, with small Board of Directors being the main decision making body, was established and REC started deepening its activities by opening local offices, developing information services, policy analysis, capacity building and advice. In 1995 the Hungarian government granted REC the status of an international organization within Hungary and provided new head office in Szentendre to the Center. The change of the legal status initiated drafting and signature of a new Charter that was signed by most of the donor and beneficiary countries in June 1996. In the years from 1997 to 2000, REC was pursuing the objectives of: providing relevant services to three groups of stakeholders (NGOs, governments - adding also local governments, businesses), in addressing environmental issues relating to the transition process, EU accession and sustainable development; implementing a multi-stakeholder approach to solving environmental problems; maintaing both the local in-country presence and a regional perspective on environmental issues; ensuring financial sustainability by diversifying funding sources and establishing a sound financial base; continuing its internal organizational development. In these years REC has developed a strong scope of work in support to the national and local government, while the work with the business sector is still under development. The multi-stakeholder approach was implemented in many projects supporting dialogue among different groups and valuable experience have been gathered. Through its activities in the field of NGO support and public participation, REC has developed an area of excellence in what is today seen as the key to achieving environmental improvement - the support and management of the decision making processes. Ensuring financial sustainability of the Center has been a continuous effort in face of the phase out of untied and semi-untied funding - 2000 is the first year without significant untied contributions, but with a diversified project funding. The Center has been continuously adapting its organisation and management procedures to challenges of the growing scope of work and shift from untied to project funding. Network of what are now called Country Offices was maintained, expanded and upgraded and they are more and more able to take their own initiative in developing and implementing projects of local, national and even regional relevance. In 1999, REC employed 130 staff - 70 in head office in Szentendre and 60 in 15 Country Offices and one Field Office. The operational budget of the Center was 2,5 million and total turnover was 6,7 million Euro, out of which 1,1 million were grants. 2. Mission REC's mission is stated in the Charter signed by 25 countries and the European Commission:   "…to assist in solving the environmental problems in Central and Eastern Europe through the promotion of cooperation among non-governmental organizations, governments, businesses and other environmental stakeholders, the free exchange of information and public participation in environmental decision making." Democratic functioning of the society is seen here as a crucial precondition for environmental protection and achieving sustainable development. In order to become environmentally sustainable and to secure acceptable quality of life to current and future generation, humanity has to develop self-regulating, participatory political system(s), based on respect for human rights. This concept is at the core of REC's focus on "process" approach as opposed to focusing on technical solutions to environmental problems. With the ongoing process of European integration, including EU enlargement and Stability Pact for South-East Europe, the scope of work of the REC is becoming of increasing importance for the future European Union as a whole. In this context, the solutions to environmental problems in Central and Eastern Europe can no longer be seen in isolation from the EU. This means that in geographic terms, the Center will continue its programme in the current countries of operations, and in some aspects it will work at the level of the European Union.   3. Vision By 2005, after some of the accession countries should have acceded to the EU, REC will be an organisation facilitating the improvement of the European environment, by facilitating development and implementation of pan-European, EU, regional (CEE, SEE), national, and sub-national environmental policies. REC will continue to provide a significant capacity that will speed up the process of environmental integration of the CEE countries with the EU and will benefit the EU from within. The REC itself will continue as an innovative model of providing a flexible set of key services to the environmental sector as a whole and the environmental stakeholders in particular. These services include granting and other support to the environmental civil society, information exchange, policy research and development, facilitation of dialogue, capacity building and networking.   4. Strategic Objectives In this REC will pursue the following strategic goals: Provide high quality, innovative, demand driven services to stakeholders, aiming at the highest benefit for the European and global environment and implementing sustainable development in practice. These services will be in addition and support to (not replacing) the capacity and initiative of stakeholders themselves. Provide a gateway for dialogue, networking and cooperation among stakeholders and partners at and between the global, European, national and local levels. Maintain the independent character of the organisation through its successful model of governance, its legal status in Hungary and other countries of operations, diversified funding and quality of work. Match the geographic scope of the operations with the process of EU integration. Secure financial sustainability through project funding, further diversification of funding sources, and development of longer term funding arrangements with key donors and countries of operations. Continue proactively the development of the organisation in order to be able to deliver its mission in rapidly changing context of political, social and economic development in Europe and the world.   5. Stakeholder Related Objectives 5.1 Governments REC will continue to support the CEE countries in responding to the processes of transition, EU accession and implementing sustainable development in practice. This will be done in close cooperation with the European Commission in the political framework of providing secretariat to the Task Force for the Implementation of the Environmental Action Programme for the CEE and the Task Force for the Implementation of the Regional Environmental Reconstruction Programme for the SEE in the framework of the Stability Pact. The activities of REC will extend also to Cyprus, Malta and Turkey as accession countries. As the process of EU enlargement progresses, REC will serve more and more also in support of development and implementation of EU environmental policies. REC will also increasingly serve to facilitate the participation of its countries of operations in the pan-European environmental policy processes such as "Environment for Europe" and the UN ECE conventions, as well as in global processes such as the Climate Change and Biodiversity Conventions.   5.2 Non Governmental Organisations REC will seek to enhance environmental civil society development by supporting environmental NGOs by continuing to increase the local, national and regional grants, assisting NGOs to focus on priority environmental policy related issues, enabling NGO to access decision-makers, developing more innovative NGO support instruments, ensuring free access for NGOs to REC's and other information resources, and developing other financing resources. REC will provide financial, information and capacity building support for the organisational development and activities of local grassroots NGOs as well as those more developed ones, increasingly looking at their long-term viability, increasing their access to decision-makers (dialogue) and one-another (networking, regional co-operation). A particular focus will be on the development of the environmental civil society in the Balkan countries, where the level of development of NGOs is lagging behind the rest of Europe significantly, and well functioning NGOs can contribute a lot to a sound process of reconstruction, stabilisation and reconciliation..   5.3 Business Sector REC will promote environmental management, cleaner production and eco-efficiency practice and access to environmental information among the business community, to reduce industrial pollution and to increase the competitiveness of the businesses. REC will also promote and facilitate dialogue between the business sector, governments and NGOs. This work will be done in partnership with in-country organizations such as Cleaner Production Centres, Pollution Prevention Centres, chambers of commerce, and with individual companies, as well as international business organizations such as WBCSD, ERT, INEM and others. REC will also seek to enlist the support of corporate donors for other activities of the organisation and to build direct partnerships between companies, NGOs, and local communities to promote environmental protection and sustainable development.   5.4 Local Governments In the process of EU integration, as well as in any attempt to implement sustainable development in practice, local communities and especially local governments will have a crucial role and carry a heavy burden. Therefore REC will build capacity of local authorities and concerned stakeholders for environmental policy planning and implementation process; promote and facilitate participation of relevant stakeholder groups in environmental decision making on local level in order to identify best possible solutions and solicit support for their implementation; create a better understanding among local authorities about important national and international issues which are expected to have an impact on the local decision making; and raise awareness about those tools that support access to information and informed decision making. In the delivery of these services, REC will work through its Country Offices and partner with national associations of municipalities and similar organisations, as well as with environmental policy practitioners working with or in municipalities and local communities and international networks. We will endeavour to involve as many representatives of local authorities as possible in various international activities and networks, such as the European Sustainable Cities Campaign, and to develop programmatic partnerships with leading local authorities in the region.   5.5 Other Stakeholders In addition and support to the work with its main stakeholder groups, REC will also continue to work with academia and scientific organizations, as well as with media. Particular attntion will be given to supporting environmental awareness raising among the general public.   6. Organisational Development Today, REC is a flexible, matrix type organization, basically focused around projects and programmes, with a critical mass of capacity and expertise within its staff and a large number of partners outside. An important asset of the REC is the interdisciplinary and international nature of its staff and their holistic, process based approach to solving environmental problems. Human resources will be a critical asset in the future and REC will continue to recruit dynamic staff with experience in environmental policy process on one hand and engage a pool of young professionals through internship and fellowship programmes. Another critical asset will be the information and communication technologies that make possible the functioning of a networking organization like REC. We will continue to develop REC hardware and software platform to support and increase the efficiency of our work. The geographic structure of REC with internationally staffed head office in and Country Offices staffed by local staff in all countries of operations has proven to be very successful in securing local access to stakeholders while maintaining a regional perspective. The Country Office network will develop further in response to the needs and initiatives of the countries, and will gradually provide also a platform for networked work at the regional level. If activities of the REC are extended to new countries, the possibility of opening Country Offices in those countries will be explored in relation for the need to serve local stakeholders. Also the possibility of opening an office in Brussels or other EU capitals will be explored in view of growing involvement in the EU processes.   7. Funding At present, the main funding source for the REC are the donor governments with an increasing share of beneficiary governments. With the process of EU integration the distinction between donors and beneficiaries will more and more fade away. The current reliance on project funding can prove viable in the long term only if the rates charged cover the full cost of the services, including the overheads. In terms of prices, REC is positioned somewhere between local and international organisations. In the context of the EU enlargement and expected convergence of labour market across Europe it is expected that the costs and therefore the budget and rates of the REC will continue to increase in order to maintain quality staff and level of services. Some of the problems with the pure project funding are the unpredictable workload distribution, leading to periods with idle capacity and high transaction costs both for the REC and the donors. To minimize these problems, REC will pursue longer term programme funding, where budgets and broad scope of work would be agreed with donors on a multi-annual basis and the exact scooping of the work would be done annually or even more frequently. Japan Special Fund at the REC serves as a good example of such an arrangement. Another way to improve the financial viability of the REC is through untied donations. Although the initial main donors have phased out such major donations, REC would benefit a lot from several such donations at a level below 100.000 Euro a year. Some countries - Estonia and Norway - have provided us with such donations in the recent years and others may want to follow with a sort of voluntary membership fee. The funding is already well diversified between different country donors, but funding sources will be sought in other sectors, in particular from corporate donors and private foundations. The recently established US-CEE Environment Foundation based in Seattle, initially funded by the REC, is expected to start generating funding support for the REC and other environmental activities in CEE within the next year. With the further development of the NGO Support and Business and Environment Programmes, corporate support will be sought both as donations for REC's general activities and as compensation for services provided. Possibility of obtaining funding from local government will be explored.

Related information The role of the REC after 2004 The REC's mission REC Programmes