REC - EMTC: Insight 1/1: Quo vadis EMTC Network?

E M T C  N E W S

Quo vadis EMTC Network?

Where are we? What are we doing? Where are we going? As environmental training in Central and Eastern Europe and the EMTC Network move beyond their infancy to face new challenges, it is time to stop and consider these questions. This article presents the past, present and the future of the EMTC Network project, and tries to look behind the curtain into the uncertain future of the environmental training profession by drafting some bottom-line assumptions and the way the EMTC Network would like to respond to them.

The chicken or the egg?

The Environmental Management Training Center (EMTC) Network began in March 1994 as a special project of the Regional Environmental Center. The United States Environmental Protection Agency made funding available to the REC for two years, to establish and support the Hungarian EMTC and the EMTC Network. The initiative was agreed in the Terms of Reference signed on November 30, 1993 by the five project founders - the USEPA, the Institute for Sustainable Communities, the Hungarian Ministry of Environment, the University of Horticulture and Food Industry, and the REC.

The REC opened the Hungarian EMTC in October 1994, and established the EMTC Network which, at its beginning, assembled five environmental training institutions (one each in Bulgaria, Hungary, Latvia, Poland and Ukraine) to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of these institutions, work for their sustainability, expand their curricula, provide information, and expand the network members' base.

To date, the EMTC Network has successfully provided its members with training, management and funding information on a regular basis, organized two networking workshops on building sustainability, established an electronic bulletin board to exchange experience and expertise, and initiated a number of international training projects to expand the training curricula of members and increase their income. Further, the EMTC Network has secured funding for continuation of the project for another year doubled its budget, and increased the number of members from the initial 5 to 13 to include additional environmental training institutions in the Czech Republic, Romania, Russia, Slovakia, and Slovenia.

Present Situation Assumption The EMTC Network's role

All CEE governments recognize the need for and importance of environmental training Environmental training will rank higher on CEE government agendas The EMTC Network will help this process by identifying needs and trends and communicating them to CEE governments

Basic support schemes for environmental training exist in all CEE countries CEE governments will increase the amount of available funding for environmental training The EMTC Network will help prioritize areas where training is needed and offer the most appropriate environmental training resources to implement training programs

A number of international government programs exist to support environmental training in CEE Less funding will be available from international sources The EMTC Network will give international donors access to the best environmental training resources in CEE

Most environmental training activities in CEE are donor-driven and, therefore, often cannot effectively address the needs of environmental professionals in CEE Funding for environmental training will become more demand-driven and donors will increasingly focus on addressing changing needs in CEE countries The EMTC Network will help this process by identifying environmental training needs and lobbying donor agencies to work towards meeting these needs

Existing environmental training programs in CEE are either too expensive or participants are reluctant to pay the full costs of training delivery The cost-effectiveness of environmental training programs will increase along with the willingness of participants to pay the full costs of program development and delivery The EMTC Network will help increase the cost-effectiveness of training programs by providing leadership to environmental training activists and facilitating the exchange of experience and expertise

Present Situation	Assumption	The EMTC Network's role
All CEE governments recognize the need for and importance of environmental training	Environmental training will rank higher on CEE government agendas	The EMTC Network will help this process by identifying needs and trends and communicating them to CEE governments
Basic support schemes for environmental training exist in all CEE countries	CEE governments will increase the amount of available funding for environmental training	The EMTC Network will help prioritize areas where training is needed and offer the most appropriate environmental training resources to implement training programs
A number of international government programs exist to support environmental training in CEE	Less funding will be available from international sources	The EMTC Network will give international donors access to the best environmental training resources in CEE
Most environmental training activities in CEE are donor-driven and, therefore, often cannot effectively address the needs of environmental professionals in CEE	Funding for environmental training will become more demand-driven and donors will increasingly focus on addressing changing needs in CEE countries	The EMTC Network will help this process by identifying environmental training needs and lobbying donor agencies to work towards meeting these needs
Existing environmental training programs in CEE are either too expensive or participants are reluctant to pay the full costs of training delivery	The cost-effectiveness of environmental training programs will increase along with the willingness of participants to pay the full costs of program development and delivery	The EMTC Network will help increase the cost-effectiveness of training programs by providing leadership to environmental training activists and facilitating the exchange of experience and expertise

When dreams become reality

The basic assumption driving the vision of the EMTC Network project is that environmental training is a necessary and integral part of the transformation processes in Central and Eastern Europe and that such training grows in importance as the region achieves higher levels of economic development and political stability.

The EMTC Network aims at supporting leading environmental training institutions in the region which are committed to the process of suspending donor-driven initiatives in favor of demand-driven ones that address the immediate environmental needs of the society. Focusing on immediate environmental training needs will lead to improved prospects of training cost-recovery for these institutions and, at the same time, to enhanced operations and product quality.

Bringing leaders together

The formally stated mission of the EMTC Network project is to link, support and strengthen the leading environmental training institutions and individuals in Central and Eastern Europe in order to achieve sustainable environmental training in the region.

In our understanding, sustainable environmental training refers to the ability of training institutions to meet the environmental training needs of the society at a cost-recovery ratio that allows for both replication of the training and effective responses to changing needs. This means that our main efforts are in institutional strengthening, but we regard working with individuals, and especially connecting individual experts with strong institutions, as an important part of our job. Therefore, besides having the leading environmental training institutions as members, we recently established an individual membership. Already, more than 100 environmental training professionals in Central and Eastern Europe enjoy EMTC Network membership.

To fulfill our mission we have been working in four key project areas. These are: providing information, increasing visibility, facilitating exchange of experience and expertise, and initiating international projects. (More information about the EMTC Network's products and services in each of these areas can be found on the last page of this newsletter.)

Making the future

The saying goes "The Lord helps those who help themselves." We took this saying to heart and tried to see what we could do to help the environmental training profession as a whole. We looked at the development trends of the field then drafted some key underlying assumptions. Once we were able to analyze the present situation and predict the likely changes, we tried to position the EMTC Network and identify its role in the future. The results are shown in the table opposite. We do not insist that all the assumptions and assessments are perfectly correct. We might have missed an important factor, or unexpected changes may occur in the future. However, we believe that it is important to spell out our assumptions and discuss them openly. Because who else should provide us with constructive criticism and comments than those who ultimately benefit from our products and services?

REC * EMTC * PUBLICATIONS * INSIGHT * SUMMER 1996