In practical terms, there has been no significant difference between the two types of LEAPs - nationally- or locally-initiated. No functional relationship between environmental strategies at a national level, and action plans at the local level, have been established beyond some "moral support" from the ministries in the early stages of the projects.
The CEE countries have already enacted comprehensive environmental legal acts. They have included modern principles already established by western countries: polluter pays, sustainable development, access to environmental information, etc. These acts are being updated and modernized as the CEE countries harmonize their legislation with the European Union. Despite the existence of modern legislation in most CEE countries, its enforcement is usually very weak.
Local governments are authorized to issue local ordinances as well as to set down the types of municipal levies, and their rates. Local authorities could impose even stricter environmental limits then national ones, but no such cases have been reported. In Troyan, the City Council approved a new environmental ordinance regulating water usage and shifted responsibilities to the largest industries to develop their own water supply.
Act on Municipalities
All the CEE countries have passed acts on municipalities or local governments. A local community is entitled to freely administer local affairs. Every municipality has its own elected representative body. The rights and duties of local authorities are defined by laws.
Responsibilities of local governments usually include: managing municipal assets, passing and managing the municipal budget, adopting a development program for the municipal territory, setting down the types of municipal levies (fees and taxes) and issuing environmental protection ordinances.
Under the Environmental Protection Act, municipalities are responsible for controlling the disposal of waste on their territory, maintaining households waste water plants, managing nature preservation, etc. Municipal governments are also responsible for developing their own environmental protection programs.
Despite the fact that none of the above mentioned acts has been needed to develop LEAPs, they have laid down the necessary framework since citizens have the right to find solutions to many problems. None of the above mentioned acts requires that municipalities develop LEAPs, except in Hungary. The Hungarian Parliament has recently passed an act assigning municipalities a duty to prepare the municipal environmental protection programs. Local governments are required to ensure the conditions for their implementation and revise the programs at least twice a year.
Risk assessment
Risk assessment is a tool for determining the harm that some substances can pose to human health or the environment. It requires data: toxicity of pollutants, exposure to pollutants, cumulative effects, etc. Unfortunately, data have been both seriously deficient (this problem has been met in all the analyzed cases), and a great uncertainty has been often associated with the data that existed (methodological inconsistencies, mistakes entailed from extrapolations and interpolations, etc.).
Risk assessments were conducted primarily by experts from different medicine and hygiene institutes using existing data (health risk assessment) and reviewed by project committees. Some additional analyzes were conducted sporadically . In the case of a serious lack of data, experts' opinions and public concerns were used to identify environmental problems.
Comparative risk analysis
This tool for ranking environmental problems by their seriousness - relative risk - for the purpose of assigning program priorities, was used in the LEAPs developed with the guidance of ISC (in Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland). Comparative risk analyses were completed by merging experts' and public rankings at open sessions. Other factors such as economic feasibility, implementation time, political acceptability, etc., were considered as well.
It was proven in Hungarian LEAPs that people's opinions fit closely to the results of ranking processes based on conducted analyses; a "community wisdom" is likely to be a quite suitable indicator.
Despite the fact that economic considerations were taken in the final stage of the ranking process, it was the weakest part of the priority-setting procedure in all analyzed cases. When selecting the best options to solve environmental problems, economic analyses of communal finances is necessary. There were several priority environmental media-oriented categories in the LEAPs:
A strategy to direct environmental investments should be based on both local priorities and on the priorities of national environmental policy. State budgets, the main source of municipal income, as well as national environmental funds, finance many local and regional projects perceived as national priorities.
In this term, the role of environmental NGOs is to motivate and persuade others. The number of environmental NGOs has increased significantly in all the CEE countries. They are active mainly at the local level: it seems to be the most practical level for public participation. It is much easier to involve citizen groups, and even individual residents, in the process of improving their environmentat a local level than at a national level.
Participation of both the lay public and independent experts is a prerequisite for the success of the LEAP. Project committees (citizens committee, advisory committee, etc.) were established in each case project by local people on a voluntary basis. Committee members represent the public, for example, in important events such as the launching of the LEAP, priority setting, etc. Many people were partly involved in projects through questionnaires and public surveys on environmental problems. Despite partial success with the public engagement in the LEAP process, a great majority of the public is still not concerned with local environmental issues.
An adequate legal base for participation of both civic groups and individual citizens needs still to be defined in most countries. Civic groups, as well as the general public, usually participate in Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) procedures giving the opportunity to express an opinion on investment projects. Environmental NGOs comment on the drafts of environmental policy documents. Business groups are asked to comment on the drafts of legislation. The right of the public to participate in formulating and implementing environmental programs and projects at any level has not been formally enacted anywhere.
Laws define the responsibilities of different state organs in monitoring the condition of the environment. But procedures, frequency, and types of environmental information are not explicitly stated. Also, methodology for measuring environmental data change over time within countries (it can result in different figures for the same venture). This complicates or makes impossible the calculation of trends, which is very important, especially in the transition period, with many structural changes in economies and policies. Methods of collecting environmental data are not unified even in neighboring countries, complicating any transboundary cooperation (developing regional environmental action plans within two or more neighboring countries).
For local governments, it was almost impossible to order expensive information on the condition of particular components of the environment. In the past, if the problem was of national importance, national agencies or the MoE used to carry out analyses. With changing competencies, local governments have been assigned the task of monitoring the environment within a municipal territory without adequate financial resources or technical equipment allocation.
Access to environmental information
The right to free access to environmental information is embodied in constitutions or in some detailed regulations. The law enables participation of people in administrative cases as a party or on behalf of the party. Usually, no other specification of a possible information process is given - i.e. it is not clear to citizens mainly who, by when, and to which extent should information be provided. Some countries (Slovakia) have drawn up the principles of a complex new act governing free access to environmental information, which specifies in detail the conditions for applying constitutional rights. In general, it is true that access to environmental information has been included in legal systems, but is very vaguely defined. It is not even clearly stated what is meant by "environmental information."
Ministries of environment and their organizations, together with other state institutions, usually publish yearly reports and statistical yearbooks on the environment: data related to the condition of the environment, data about measures pursued for environmental care and rehabilitation, environmental expenditures, etc. (no data about particular polluters are provided in these reports). They are disseminated and widely available. No specific information on the environment is usually available at the local level, except some popular information in local bulletins.
All the LEAPs have missed some important elements: setting and adopting concrete aims or targets. These aims must be realistic, measurable, and achievable within a reasonable time limit. If they are worked out in a broad consensus with citizens and approved by local authorities, they should represent clear, measurable and comprehensible commitment by local government to really take action. These targets would serve as reference points when the progress of the LEAP implementation is monitored.
Environmental plans call for action. The LEAP should come up with realistic action that is feasible within a given time and with available resources. Clearly formulated actions based on the results of economic analyses and broad consensus can bridge the gap between LEAP development and implementation.
Using larger scales (county, district, region) can overcome the negative consequences of decentralization. Without the cooperation of small municipalities, scarce resources can be used in a less efficient way.
A regional LEAP, based on the watershed principle (RSD Ecoregion, Hungary), created an association of 23 communities which will proceed with the plan implementation as an independent, umbrella body. On the other hand, not all communities were involved in the process because of an absence of common interest.
At the local level, it seems to be easier to involve stakeholders, create partnerships, assign responsibility. On the other hand, scattered municipalities do not have the resources to undertake bigger environmental projects.
Foreign aid can play a unique role in transferring know-how (methodologies, techniques), experience and some seed money for project commencement. Particular technical expertise (risk assessment methods, economic analyses, comparative risk analysis) and techniques for involvement and dealing with the public are useful.
To make foreign assistance mutually useful, both the donors and recipients should agree on their expectations. Foreign aid should follow qualitative criterion instead of quantitative criterion. Instead of commencing many LEAPs across the region, it should focus on a few pilot projects reaching tangible, concrete results. These LEAPs would be the best vehicle for replication by others. Recipients should not rely on donors developing and implementing projects. The lead in the whole LEAP process should be with local people, despite the fact that scope of activities of different stakeholders vary during the process.