Lead Partner: Eco Idea
Geographical Scope: Regional
- Europe and North America Summary: The actual state of natural environment depends on everyday decisions taken at the local level (at household, institutions, business and trade). The importance of environmental protection is obvious for every citizen and local stakeholder. But at the same time sustainability in everyday life, decision making in industries, institutions shops etc. is not considered. Acting for environment is not attractive at the marketing level. When we want to achieve any ecological result we have to arrange project for various players of locality.
There are three key areas:
1) For sustainable consumption (focused on noncommercial informational system for consumers) addressed to trade - consumers - schools - local authority.
2) For sustainable management (focused on reduction of paper, energy and heating use) addressed to business and institutions - local authority - media.
3) For youth eco-activation (focused on out of school activity closely coordinated with local eco policy) addressed to schools - local authority - households. [more]
Lead Partner: United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Regional Bureau for Europe and CIS - United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)
Geographical Scope: Sub-regional Danube - Black Sea Basin Summary: The Global Environment Facility Strategic Partnership on the Black Sea and Danube Basin is an initiative aimed to address the root causes of environmental degradation in this region and promote investments and capacity building to return the Black Sea/Danube Basin environment to its 1960s condition. The GEF funded Partnership has been established with the cooperation of the World Bank, UNDP, UNEP and other multilateral and bilateral financiers and basin countries.
The elements of the Partnership are two UNDP Regional Projects and the WB Investment Fund:
* The Danube Regional Project (DRB): Strengthening the Implementation Capacities for Nutrient Reduction and Transboundary Cooperation in the Danube River Basin
* The Black Sea Ecosystems Recovery Project (BSERP): Control of eutrophication, hazardous substances and related measures for rehabilitating the Black Sea ecosystem
* World Bank Investment Fund for Nutrient Reduction in the Black Sea/Danube Basin
[more]
Lead Partner: UNEP DTIE
Geographical Scope: Global Summary: The Partnership's objective is to provide coherent and authoritative scientific assessments on the environmental impacts of resource use over the full life cycle. This will contribute to a better understanding of how to decouple economic growth from resource use and resource use from environmental degradation, and in particular of ways to increase resource-efficient economic growth, of ways to reduce the identified impacts, and of ways to stimulate sustainable innovation. [more]
Lead Partner: International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI)
Geographical Scope: Global Summary: The development of management tools that integrate resource management is a crucial step in helping local government achieve sustainable public administration. The official Local Government Dialogue Paper for The World Summit on Sustainable Development Accelerating Sustainable Development: "Local Action Moves the World", published by the UN Economic and Social Council, 14. December 2001, (E/CN.17/2002/PC.2/6/Add.5) identifies Integrated Resource Management as a key "strategy for the future" to strengthen local government by public mechanisms for local sustainable development.
The partnership will support a global pilot program of Integrated Resource Management, starting from concept and program development through to pilot implementation in various municipalities throughout the world. The programme shall be driven by local government in partnership with supranational and intergovernmental organisations and support from national governments. The partnership will bring together skills, experience and capacity from the full spectrum of environmental management and from the other resource management fields, namely financial and human resource management. Being international in scope, the IRM concept will be implemented under different regional and national conditions. The main objectives of the Implementation Partnership "Piloting Integrated Resource Management" are to:
* demonstrate the applicability of IRM at the international level, as identified in the official UN Local Government Dialogue Paper.
* support the integration of resource management approaches which facilitate sustainable development
* demonstrate the value of IRM as an implementation tool to support "Local Action 21"
* develop a management tool which enables sustainability to drive priority setting
* establish capacity world wide in IRM by launching a network of regional hubs/centres of excellence
* exchange experiences in resource management approaches at an international level. [more]
Lead Partner: World Resources Institute (WRI)
Geographical Scope: Global Summary: The Partnership for Principle 10 seeks to improve national public participation systems to ensure access to information, public participation, and justice in decision-making that affects the environment. Improved public access to information, participation, and justice in decision-making makes decisions more fair, legitimate, and sustainable. At the national level, a working public participation system enables individuals and groups to make informed choices and integrate social and environmental objectives in decisions on economic policies and specific development activities. As such, a public participation system is an essential mechanism for sustainable development.
National systems for public participation have many common elements, including policies, supporting legislation, institutional infrastructure, methods of dissemination, and timing of participation. Diverse national systems of public participation share areas of achievement as well as weaknesses and gaps. Recent assessments conducted by The Access Initiative of national public participation systems in nine countries, including Chile, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Mexico, South Africa, Thailand, Uganda, and the United States, provide a comprehensive diagnostic evaluation of the strengths in these countries as well as specific needs for improvement in both policy and practice.
The Partnership for Principle 10 will work to address these implementation gaps and strengthen public access in areas identified as weaknesses. Based on independent assessments of national public participation systems, the Partnership will provide a vehicle for stakeholders to work together to strengthen areas of weakness.
The Partnership for Principle 10 is built around a set of common commitments, to which all partners agree. These common commitments serve as a statement of the Partnership's values and principles. The common commitments set the parameters for the scope of work of the Partnership. All partners, by joining the Partnership for Principle 10, commit to support the accelerated implementation of Principle 10 in their country and in their own practices. They also:
* Recognize that national public participation systems have common elements, and should be regularly and independently assessed by civil society organizations using a common framework of indicators-such as those developed by The Access Initiative-to identify strengths and weaknesses in implementation.
* Commit to collaborate across sectoral boundaries to identify implementation gaps, prioritize needed actions, and implement programs to strengthen capacity and improve performance.
* Commit to promote implementation of Principle 10 internationally through engagement with regional and international organizations, international trade agreements, and financial institutions, as appropriate. [more]
Lead Partner: REEEP International Secretariat
Geographical Scope: Global Summary: Accelerate a global market for Renewable Energy and Energy Efficient Systems (REES).
Tremendous financial resources from the private and public sector will be needed to meet developing and transition countries' future energy demand in a sustainable way. Obstacles prohibiting this development include a lack of reliable policies and regulatory measures, and the perceived high risk and low return investments in REES.
The removal of the obstacles to sustainable energy is urgently needed:
- Robust policies and favourable, transparent and stable regulatory frameworks are required to attract private investors and to guarantee affordable energy services to the consumers.
- New forms of financing, risk mitigation and guarantee models will be necessary to make small sized renewables and energy efficiency projects bankable and economically attractive.
REEEP aims to work as an enabler, multiplier and catalyser of institutional change, and to have a real impact over the next decade with the following objectives:
1. Significant global increase of investments in renewable energy
2. Significant global increase of energy efficiency measures
3. Significant increase in access to sustainable energy services for the poor
[more]
Lead Partner: City of Lyon - United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) - Université Lyon
Geographical Scope: Global Summary: This initiative seeks to produce training modules from the results of research projects; to create skill centers as support structures for research, trails and training in local sustainable development practices; to create a knowledge base making use of all sources of information on sustainable development practices; to implement e-learning courses; and to make the information and skills required for sustainable development practices available and readily comprehensible to everyone.
* Making available in a way that is easily understandable by everyone (businesses, local authorities, associations, NGOs...) the knowledge and competences necessary for the planning, bringing into effect and evaluation of sustainable development policies
* Creating a knowledge base built up from all sources of information on the pracaticalities of sustainable development
* Putting in place training by e-learning as well as logistical platforms based in regional centres of competence (creation of centres of competence, initiation of research and experimental projects, production of training modules) [more]
Lead Partner: Palacký University, Olomouc
Geographical Scope: Sub-regional Visegrad Group Countries Summary: Main objectives:
* To promote the process of transferring the Visegrad Group Countries from recepient to donor countries.
* To integrate sustainable development and environmental considerations into the system of development assistance and co-operation performed by the Visegrad Group Countries.
* To support education and awareness in the field of sustainable development in countries with economy in transition and in least developed countries by so called "East-East Transfer of Know-How".
* * To assist the V4 countries to implement their global and regional obligations in the fields of environment and sustainable development also through development aid and co-operation.
* To demonstrate the role of integration of environmental and sustainable development aspects of development aid and co-operation as a tools for to contribute to establishing and strengthening stable international relations based on partnership, to building peace and security.
* To make acquaintance of the participants from developing countries with the system and sources of development assistance and co-operation.
* To support the capacity building in project preparation, project management, modelling etc. [more]
to collapse the Summary of Partnerships.