Estimating the exact number of NGOs proved a difficult task. Not all NGOs are officially registered and some previously registered organizations have ceased to exist or have changed their areas of activity. A phenomenon of NGO "mimicry" must also be considered: some groups declare themselves as "not-for-profit, non-governmental environmental organizations" to gain advantages from such status. In light of these considerations, the approximate number of environmental NGOs can be estimated as 800 to 1,000 in Russia, 160 to 200 in Ukraine and 50 to 60 in Moldova.
In the entire sample, half of the NGOs surveyed have less than 35 active members, one third have 50 to 1,000 activists and one tenth of the organizations indicate that they have more than one thousand members. (See Chart 1 in Annex D for details.)
One should realize, however, that the real distribution of active members per NGO will favor small and medium sized organizations with up to 50 members. Two factors could account for this phenomenon: a probable over-representation of the largest organizations in the survey and the possibility of double-counting members who belong to a single "nuclear" NGO and who also participate in activities of an umbrella coalition or other public NGO consortium.
Thus, one finds approximately 5,000-10,000 members of environmental NGOs in Russia, 2,000-3,000 "green activists" in Ukraine, and 500-800 active members in Moldova.
According to registration status, the majority of environmental NGOs work as regional or inter-regional organizations. They are active in more than one city or town. One third of the organizations are active locally in one particular town or village. The percentage of nation-wide organizations varies greatly: almost half of the NGOs in Moldova have national organization status, whereas the corresponding percentage for Ukraine and Russia are 10% and 3% respectively.
At least 6% of NGOs in the sample are non-registered organizations, with the greatest share of such groups in Ukraine (12%) as compared to 3% in Moldova and Russia. The Ukrainian phenomenon of a relatively high rate of non-registered organizations warrants attention. It may be that registering an organization in Ukraine is a complicated or difficult issue. This would account for the relatively high ranking of the registration issue among all the problems of Ukrainian NGOs: 18% of the Ukrainian organizations mentioned this item, twice as many as in any other country surveyed. Another explanation of the phenomenon could be that people simply do not see any advantage in being an officially registered organization.
One third of the NGOs indicated that their area of operation is wider than what is described by their regional status registration. Again, the nonconformity ratio has the highest value for Ukrainian organizations; nearly half of the NGOs in this country responded that they operate at a wider regional level.
The share of organizations with extensive socialist experience is very small - not more than one tenth of the entire population of environmental NGOs established prior to 1987. The respective figure for Russia is higher, because many Soviet age organizations that used to be "Soviet Union-wide" now consider themselves "Russian" organizations.
The most intensive growth of environmental NGOs occurred during the age of "perestroika" (approximately 1987 to 1991) when "glasnost" was introduced and the first steps toward "opening" of society were initiated. This was an age of partial liberalization and official attempts at adjusting the legal frameworks of a socialist state to the legal and political standards of a "civil society". The culmination point of this short and final period of Soviet history was the disintegration of the USSR. Consequently, it is not surprising to find that in the small national republics the growth of public initiatives (including environmental) was the largest. For instance, more than half (53%) of Moldovan environmental NGOs appeared during this period.
In the post-Soviet period, i.e. after 1991, the largest NGO growth was in Ukraine. After Ukraine proclaimed its independence, the number of NGOs doubled. As to the Russian NGO community during this period, it was mainly concerned with adapting to a new geo-political situation. Many former "Soviet-Union-wide" organizations found a new identification as "Russian", or, at least from a legal point of view, "Russia-based".
The creation period proves important in predicting the social behavior of different NGO age groups: NGOs created in significantly different historical epochs share different views, have distinctive social experiences and express divergent attitudes. For instance:
This data supports the general conclusion: the older environmental NGOs have a more developed administrative infrastructure, possess certain political capital, but are less likely to survive as "true" grass-roots NGOs in the new social and economic conditions. The younger NGOs are more active in establishing international contacts as well as in grass-roots work. They are more viable and sustainable social organizations, due to their flexible structure.
As to the budget of NGOs, we estimate that the majority of NGOs (at least 60%) have an annual budget of $500 to $10,000; approximately a quarter of them have a budget under $500, and 16 % of NGOs operate with a budget that exceeds $10,000 per annum.
In general, the "Distribution of Wealth", or financial stratification, of the environmental NGO community reproduces the standard picture of an "inverted pyramid"Ða thin upper strata of the richest organizations that accumulate the majority of the wealth in the "community" and operate with budgets over $10,000 per year. On the other poles, up to half of the NGOs that have "symbolic" annual budgets of up to $1,000 that only allow them to sustain their basic activities. There exists, nevertheless, a "middle strata" of more-or-less stable NGOs that could be taken as a sample group: they operate on a regular basis with amounts from $1,000 to $10,000. Consequently, they possess adequate financial experience and capacity to utilize effectively the grants they might receive. (See Charts 2.a, 2.b in ANNEX D).
When studying a more detailed distribution, we can state that the average budget shifts to the lower values in Moldova, where 58% of surveyed NGOs report an annual budget equal to or lower than $1,000, while the average budget within the Russian and Ukrainian NGOs shifts to $1,000 to $10,000 per year.
Notably, all NGOs have serious material problems. The NGO population is almost unanimous in evaluating their financial status as negative or disastrous (23% and 33% respectively). One third of the organizations say they have no funding and the staff members work entirely on a voluntary basis. Less than 10% of NGOs say "we have enough funds, but some of our programs lack sufficient financing". With regard to the financial status, it does not matter which country an organization is from or how old it is. The only variable that makes a difference is the level of an NGO's annual budget. Among the richest organizations, the share of "uncomplaining" NGOs is three times larger than in relatively deprived organizations. (See Tables 13 and 20 in ANNEX D).
Private domestic donations and grants constitute the second largest funding source for one fifth of all NGOs. The typical NGO group in this category consists primarily of the old organizations created prior to 1987 with a small annual budget up to $1,000.
The third income source is membership dues, identified as largest by 20% of respondents. At the same time, half of the Moldovan NGOs consider contributions and dues from their members as decisive "income".
An interesting observation can be made about which types of NGOs receive most of their financing as fees for services they provide and for special research: they are mainly Russian environmental NGOs (25% of them) and 29% of financially most sustainable NGOs (with a budget over $10,000).
An additional remark could be made that the oldest environmental organizations and, on the other hand, Russian NGOs follow the most diversified pattern of financing: approximately one fifth of such organizations have "other" key financing such as education and training and publishing activities.
A detailed analysis of the distribution of replies to original questions proves quite informative as well. A general conclusion is that the four most common spheres of NGO activity are (1) collection and dissemination of environmental information; (2) protection of natural objects, (3) education and training, (4) environmental monitoring.
Environmental NGOs are most active in collecting and disseminating environmental information. The majority of NGOs said they have detailed action plans in this area and one third to one half of NGOs participate "time to time". The second most important NGO activity area relates to "grass-roots" actions with regard to protection of natural objects, only 12% replied that they are not participating in such activity. The third leading activity, with 75% NGO participation, consists of the development and implementation of environmental education and training programs.
Another sphere of NGO activity involves specialized training with a high level of expertise. On a regular basis, with detailed programs in place, 20-25% of the organizations perform environmental research and project design. In addition, NGOs often use their energy and expertise, i.e. their human capital, to lobby environmental matters at all levels, including participation in improving environmental legislation.
With regard to protest actions, most NGOs participate on an irregular basis, but the potential is quite high here: three fourths of NGOs could be mobilized for protest actions.
The lack of equipment, however, represents only part of a general problem of effective communication and information. The other aspects are: (a) underdevelopment of the general information/communication infrastructure in the region and (b) absence of appropriate skills and experience.
Very little can be done to rapidly improve the national or regional telephone network. However, personal computers and "telephone-based" applications such as fax machines and e-mail systems could be put it in place quickly. A "green network" should be saturated with communication means so as to ensure effective decentralized and interactive communication.
Supply of hardware is a necessity, but not a sufficient pre-condition for creation and maintenance of an effective NGO network. The most important investment will be the training of NGO members in using modern technology for communication and information.
Another acute problem reported by at least 40% of the NGOs concerns the lack or absence of reliable environmental and social information. Actually, this is a general social problem. The majority of NGO members are not used to searching actively for information and employ multiple strategies of "information hunting". As NGO leaders and experts pointed out, in many instances an organization will have the necessary hardware and communication software, but not the trained personnel to use the communication applications properly.
Thus, technical assistance of formal training in using modern communication media is highly necessary. This would not only help to create more effective networks, but also contribute to improving the quality of professional and social communication.
This represents a common global problem. People are not able to take advantage of modern decentralized and interactive information infrastructures due to a lack of knowledge and appropriate and systematic training and because of the underdevelopment of global communication facilities - i.e. "information highways" and other communication channels.
A particularly bad situation occurs in Moldova, where more than 94% of NGOs need assistance in organizing information networking. In general, the ability of NGOs to use e-mail systems, faxes and PCs is the most critical issue. Both the hardware supply and respective skills are insufficient.
With regard to the Russian language, despite the fact that it might not be accepted as an official language in several countries, it is the most common and natural language for international communications within the CIS.
Interestingly, in many cases e-mail exchange is conducted in English even between Russian-speaking correspondents, because most electronic networks cannot transmit the Cyrillic font properly. In this regard, the special efforts of ISAR to introduce Russian-language communication software for their constituents should be appreciated. As a matter of compromise, many correspondents simply use Latin characters for transliteration of Russian words in their e-mail exchange.
This figure shows that most NGOs have a good cooperative relationship with other NGOs at the local and regional level. At the same time, the contacts with organizations from other CIS countries are significantly less intensive (see the "no relationships" column).
The information exchange is equally intensive with all categories of counterparts.
In general, the area of intensive cooperation beyond simple information exchange is bigger than the area of passive cooperation (except for contacts with CIS organizations).
Another important fact is that the medium line is represented by nothing but international and foreign NGOs. It appears that they are in some sort of contact with at least two thirds of NGOs in the countries studied, so we can suppose that they have relationships which are more intensive than simple information exchange with at least half of their partners.
