Materials

V Baltic Sea NGO forum
May 12-13, 2005

Final document of the V Baltic Sea NGO Forum

The Baltic Sea NGO Network gathered to the V Baltic Sea NGO-Forum in Gdynia in Poland
12-13.5.2005 and brought together 190 civil society representatives from all the Baltic Sea countries and representatives from the Council of the Baltic Sea States as well as other international organisations.

The Forum is convinced that civil society is based on active public participation. We believe it strengthens citizens capacity to take part actively in democratic processes. Civil society facilitates public discussions and is a meeting place for people to define and formulate common interests in relation to the state, local authorities and market forces. Civil society will have an increasing role to play in the region by enhancing peoples will to take part in their respective communities.

The Baltic Sea NGO network was established in Copenhagen 2001 and have since that time developed cooperation for strengthening civil society in our common region. Forums in Lubeck, St Petersburg, Turku and Parnu developed and stabilized the process and created networks in several fields. During the V Forum in Gdynia issues like: the Baltic Sea States citizens, the Third Sector contribution to the Baltic Sea cooperation programs, the EU financial policy and civil society development and the Third Sector as a bridge over borders have been dealt with.

National platforms, thematic cooperation networks and other structures, like the NGOs and information centers, from the Baltic Sea region, have been exchanging experiences in regional cross-border and cross-sector cooperation.

The Forum has received with satisfaction the report “ The NGO Legislation in the countries in the Baltic Sea Region” by the MP Mrs. Outi Ojala for the Baltic Sea Parliamentary Conference dealing with the situation of NGOs in different Baltic Sea countries.

The Forum received reports and suggestions from four workshops:

• Ecology and environmental protection,
• Culture and education,
• Human Rights and socially excluded groups,
• Local and regional development.

The V Forum agreed upon:

• the necessity of continuing the work of the Network based on the four previous Forum recommendations, with a view to further creating closer contacts with the governments and increase information exchange
• supporting the main suggestions expressed in the report “The NGO Legislation in the countries in the Baltic Sea Region”, especially the need to create, in mutual cooperation, suitable infrastructure for NGOs and guarantee financial assistance and support systems for civil society development as a means of enhancing democracy
• readiness to cooperate with the Council of the Baltic Sea States and its working bodies, Baltic Sea Parliamentary Conference, Nordic Council of Ministers, Nordic Council and other public institutions in Europe and the Baltic Sea Region,
• to continue the efforts in gaining Special Participants Status in the CBSS- Council of the Baltic Sea States, the importance of finalizing the work to increase cooperation with the EU through the INTERREG and other programs.

Conclusions

Ecology and environmental protection – Waste Sorting and Recycling-moderator: Lucja Ptaszynska, The Kashubian Ecological Association

After the historical EU enlargement by 10 new member states on May the 1st 2004 the Baltic Sea has become an inland sea of the Union and Russia. It is a unique opportunity to draw broader international attention to the region and raise additional resources to guarantee sustainable development in the whole Baltic Sea Region.

The V NGO Baltic Sea Eco workshop was mainly dedicated to household waste management.The participants were the presentatives of NGOs, business sector, scientists, public authorities and dwellers.

The working group suggested:

1. To improve the Waste Law in Poland and in Russia in the case of the ownership of waste and of issuing proper license by the local government for anybody who wants to take an initiative (sorting, transportation, landfill construction).
2. The public and NGOs should be allowed and have real possibilities to comment on the draft license during a certain time period.

It is necessary to develop and support the network of environmental information and education centers as a mechanism of application or implementation of the ideas of Aarhus Convention:

1. Access to information and increasing public awareness and outreach;
2. Facilitating cross-sector co-operation;
3. Commenting on or initiating new legislation;
4. Enhancing public participation in waste management planning and environmental impact assessment of new projects;
5. Increasing the role of education in all three dimensions of sustainability – ecological, economic and social – in the curricula of schools.

The incineration plants are not a sustainable solution because virgin materials must replace what was burnt and because toxic substances end up in the environment again.

All recyclable materials/nutrients (including wastewater, not only solid waste) from households should be segregated on spot of generation and recycled as much as possible.

In particular, it is necessary to involve Russia more actively in the EU environmental policy (common meetings and agreements).

As the next step the Polish Ecological Club is willing to organize an international conference concerning better waste management for the whole Baltic Sea Region. One important topic should be the concept of “zero waste”.

We should also like to remind the governmental sector the decisions and recommendations from the past years ecological workshops and hope that these will be discussed again during the VI Baltic Sea NGO Forum.

Local and regional development- Co-operation between NGOs and GOs – moderator: Bjarke Boetcher, CBSS Secretariat

The purpose of this workshop was to:

1. Describe the importance of cooperation between civil society and governmental organisations as concerns local and regional development
2. To give examples of best practices of such cooperation, by presenting selected case studies

The workshop, which gathered about 50 participants, included presentations from:Mr Helmut Hallemaa, Representative Council of Estonian NGO Roundtable; Mr Jakub Wygnanski, President of the Association of Non-Governmental Initiatives, Poland; Mr Igor Rekunov, Baltic International Development Agency, Kaliningrad, Russia and Mr Niels Boye Bonefeld, Business College West, Denmark

The workshop was moderated by Mr Bjarke W. Botcher, Senior Advisor at the Secretariat of the Council of the Baltic Sea States. The Rappourteur of the workshop was Ms Joanna Szewczyk from the Regional Centre of Information and Support for the NGO of Gdansk, Poland.

The speakers gave examples of different models for NGO-GO cooperation in the countries around the Baltic Sea. There are still considerable differences between the involvement of civil society into decision-making in the Baltic Sea States. While in some countries there is a long-standing tradition of involvement, while in other countries the principles for NGO-GO cooperation have only recently been established. In addition, there are also countries of the region, where NGO-GO cooperation has only recently begun. The importance of NGO involvement in regional development was underlined.

All speakers gave examples of best practices of cooperation from their countries. The participants of the workshop agreed to highlight the following items from the discussions:

1. NGOs should act in a responsible and professional way, in order to become equal partners for the authorities. One method to ensure this is to introduce code of ethics for NGOs. However, it may be difficult to ensure that NGOs live up to these, and an ombudsman-like mechanism could be considered.
2. On the other hand, public authorities ought to pay attention to ensuring increased readiness for cooperation with civil society. In order to facilitate this, authorities ought to learn more about the importance of civil society and NGO activities.
3. NGOs could work as intermediaries between local authorities and other NGOs, paving the ground for cooperation projects.
4. The need for allocation of increased funding for the development of civil society in the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad from the countries of the Baltic Sea Region was underlined. Currently, 80% of foreign funding for the third sector in Kaliningrad comes from North America. At the same time, also the Russian Government ought to allocate more funding for NGO activities.
5. NGOs need to improve their skills in project drafting in order to be more successful in obtaining funding.
6. The annual Baltic Sea NGO Forums is a good example of NGO-GO cooperation.
7. NGOs perform an important watch-dog function vis-a-vis the states.
8. The environmental organisations of the Baltic Sea Region (B21, Helcom etc.) has developed useful methods for involvement of civil society (ranging from observership to equal representation in the governing bodies) and these mechanism may serve as a good example for others.
9. In some countries, the public authorities still have a “teaching attitude“ towards NGOs, which ought to be alternated.
10. There are different tools to stimulate NGO-GO cooperation. The Polish law, which requires local authorities to prepare annually a plan for cooperation with NGOs, has led to increased NGO-GO cooperation in Poland, and could serve as a good example for others. This legal approach is of a legal nature, as it obliges the parties by law. However, also other voluntary measures, such as education, should be introduced.
11. NGOs may benefit from local authorities increased use of contracting services to NGOs.
12. It should be kept in mind that the EU enlargement does not solve all problems. In some countries, the working conditions for NGOs are still poor. In Poland, the registration procedure for newly established NGOs still appears to be unnecessarily complicated and long.
13. The workshop agreed that there is not a single universal model for NGO-GO cooperation, but that each country, local authority or NGO should choose their own model, which would comfort their specific needs. The exchange of experience and best practices on these topics remains extremely useful for the NGOs of the Baltic Sea Region.

Culture and education – Fair of Cultural Activities moderator: Silvi Teesalu, Danish Cultural Institute in Estonia

The meeting started from a definition: What is culture? Apart from the obvious answers there was also the one that sounded: It is the way of living.

The economic aspect of promoting and stimulating cultural activity is that:

• it enhances economic growth and development (this the role for NGOs to pursue!), so there should be synergy between business and cultural activity

Educational aspect:

• widely understood civic participation should be encouraged and promoted
• NGOs are a perfect tool for introducing and promoting cultural activities

Cross-border co-operation aspect:

• culture for communication (culture is the first of the communication tools)
• culture for building networks
• culture for co-operation between all sectors
• culture for promoting humanistic attitude

The workshop included national presentations of cultural activities and international co-operation in spheres such as: theatre, music, art integration, alternative forms of art, music and drama festivals, etc.
Such events are aiming at:

• boosting international co-operation while preserving national identity (identity, diversity, unity)
• engaging local communities in cultural and educational activities,
• inspiring people to initiate changes (changes initiated through art)
• enhancing democratic and civic community development
• overcoming passiveness by means of culture and education
• developing tolerance

What should be done before the next Forum?
Suggestions:

1. exchange information (update your home pages; use of international languages)
2. build networks (keeping in touch; exchange of good practices)
3. create website of the networks (one international website with national links)
4. societies have changed so policies, including cultural strategies, should change as well and adopt a new approach
5. NGOs should contribute to multiculturalism and globalisation because they shape societies and help develop civic society initiatives
6. consider potential co-operation with neighbours: Russia, Belarus
7. defining new ideas and topics of co-operation
8. finding co-operation partners
9. prepare for the next Forum>

Human rights and socially excluded groups- Influence of the EU Enlargement on Socially Excluded Groups
moderator: Artur Czerwinski, Network of East- West Women

The aim of the branch workshop was to discuss modern European strategies of fundraising, creating networks of international co-operation and new technologies to combat discrimination and social exclusion.

The first part of the meeting was a presentation of organizations that promote especially women’s rights, refugees’ rights, and their current programs.

The second part of the workshop was focused on the problem of fundraising and creating a network of international cooperation as there is no appropriate network in the region. The question was whether there is a kind of network linked to cooperating with the international one. The solution is to pass all the information further as it will give results in the future.

The last part was meant to be a discussion concerning human rights and ways of creating a network of cooperation between the participants.
Conclusions:

All the Baltic countries have common problems and that is the reason of need for creating similar things for the whole region.
One of the methods of acting should be the process of searching for the answer to a question: what is covered and what is not covered by other commissions. It would bring benefits as organizations would be focused on specified areas of the Human Rights.
All the participants agreed that there is a need to work together on education and change the way of people’s thinking, the need to teach politicians on that matter and improve the knowledge of Human Rights in early education.

There was a paper named “Framework for the Baltic Sea Human Rights Network”, created by participants from Denmark, that could be considered as the summing up of the workshops.

Aims presented in the paper of the Network are for instance:

• To function as common network for NGOs from all sectors working for promoting Human Rights based on the internationally recognized Human Rights through strengthening of the civil society in the Baltic Sea region including Russia
• To influence the Council of the Baltic Sea States and its member states to work for Human Rights, particularly minorities’ rights and freedom of press

The main suggested strategies are:

• To build national networks that cover best possibly all Human Rights fields
• To appoint in each member country a national coordinator
• To co-operate with the other European networks in the Human Rights field
• To establish the national networks in national Forum committees (Focal Points) and participate in committee meetings

The Danish NGO Forum Human Rights Group proposed the working plan that should be taken into consideration by other participants. The paper consists of the following actions:

• To draft a statement of principles to be prepared for the next NGO Forum in Sweden
• To prepare a discussion of the principles in the Human Rights Forum at the NGO Forum in Sweden
• To prepare a discussion about an action program for the next NGO Forum in Sweden
• To establish networks in all Baltic Sea countries and appoint national coordinators

THE MAIN CONCLUSION OF THE WORKSHOPS: EDUCATION ABOVE EVERYTHING!

Additional information:

V Baltic Sea NGO forum. 2005

Program