Your Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen,
I am very pleased to
have the opportunity to address you
today. As most of you know, the United
Nations Economic Commission for Europe
has the honour to be responsible for
the Environmental Performance Review
programme for countries with economies
in transition. This programme was initiated
by ministers at the second Ministerial
Conference "Environment for Europe",
which took place in Lucerne in April
1993. They decided that the Environmental
Performance Review programme, introduced
by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation
and Development (OECD) for its member
States, would be gradually extended
to the whole region of Europe. The UNECE
received the mandate to carry out this
extended programme for these countries
which are not members of the OECD.
The Environmental Performance
Reviews analyse the integration of environment
into all sectors of the economy. By
focusing on a range of issues, from
governance and public participation,
to management of pollution and natural
resources to social and economic sectors,
the Reviews have given strong support
to sustainable development. They have
brought national attention to the need
for capacity-building at both national
and local levels, and for strengthening
compliance and enforcement mechanisms,
particularly in the context of the decentralization
process underway in many transition
countries.
Since 1994, UNECE has
carried out Environmental Performance
Reviews in 16 countries, and has undertaken
second reviews in Bulgaria and Estonia.
UNECE has also carried out reviews jointly
with the OECD in the Russian Federation,
Poland, Bulgaria and Belarus.
The main objectives
of Environmental Performance Reviews
are to assist countries with economies
in transition to improve their management
of the environment by establishing baseline
conditions and making concrete recommendations
for better policy implementation and
performance; to integrate environmental
policies into sectoral policies and
to further integrate health aspects
into environmental performance; and
to harmonize environmental conditions
and policies throughout the region.
They also promote dialogue among UNECE
member countries and contribute to sustainable
development.
The programme has benefited
from close cooperation with the OECD
and other organizations in the UN system,
including the United Nations Development
Programme, the United Nations Environment
Programme, the World Bank and the World
Health Organization.
Ten years have passed
since UNECE received its mandate to
undertake Environmental Performance
Reviews. To mark the decade, assess
progress and propose the Programme's
future direction, we undertook an analysis
contained in the report before you,
entitled, "Environmental Policy in Transition:
Lessons Learned from Ten Years of UNECE
Environmental Performance Reviews".
I would like to briefly present a few
of the main findings presented in this
report concerning progress in environmental
management and the steps towards sustainable
development made in these countries.
Air quality
from stationary sources has improved.
In the more advanced countries in transition,
this has resulted from the introduction
of technological innovations and more
efficient management. In the less advanced
countries, however, emissions reductions
have largely resulted from the breakdown
of the industrial sector, not from technological
or managerial improvements. At the same
time, air pollution from mobile sources
has increased disproportionately in
virtually all reviewed countries as
a result of the rapid increase in transport
volume.
Water quality
is a major concern as well throughout
the region, especially where it relates
to the quality of drinking water. Wastewater
is a significant polluter and the primary
source of contamination of rivers, lakes
and groundwater, including transboundary
waters. There are serious problems with
underground and surface water contamination
by poorly stored hazardous chemicals
and waste. Water shortages continue
as a result of a poorly maintained infrastructure
and water-pricing policies. Overall,
water policies have suffered from a
highly fragmented decision-making structure
and, in some cases, short-sighted economic
considerations that have failed to include
long-term environmental and economic
impacts.
Waste management
has deteriorated and the poorly managed
dumpsites pose a particularly severe
environmental and health hazard. One
of the most serious problems is the
lack of separation and treatment facilities
for medical waste. Industries of the
past have left accumulated waste, tailings
and contaminated sites that can threaten
groundwater, surface water, soil and
air with heavy metals and radioactive
contamination.
The region has a remarkable
wealth of biodiversity
and landscapes which are being threatened
from many fronts, including agriculture,
mining, industrial pollution, transport,
pipelines and urban growth, tourism
and spatial planning. Many countries
- in particular countries which hold
extensive oil, mineral and forestry
resources - need to improve their management
of natural resources with a view towards
economically and environmentally sustainable
development.
Extraction and processing
of mineral resources
are major economic areas in countries
in the region, which have serious impacts
on soil quality, water quality, air
quality, and biodiversity. Mine tailings,
containing heavy metals and other toxic
substances, pose a significant threat
of accidents with catastrophic effect.
The absence of integrative
policy-making and planning has also
led to a number of significant problems
in a range of sectors, such as
- in tourism, where
poor waste and water management, illegal
building, weak infrastructure and
vehicle congestion threaten future
developments;
- in agriculture,
where irrational use of water, and
lack of management of pesticide and
fertilizer stocks has led to severe
salinization and soil erosion, desertification
and contamination of both surface
and ground water;
- in industry, where
lack of environmental management,
introduction of clean and efficient
technologies and poor monitoring and
reporting have led to continued pollution
of air, water and soil; and
- in the transport sector,
where poor inspection and enforcement
capabilities, low import tariffs on
used cars, lack of investment in public
transport and the failure to ban leaded
fuel have led to the highest rate
of growth of air emissions in almost
all countries.
The good news is that
there has been an increase in the number
of integrative tools used in decision-making,
including environmental impact assessment
(EIA), strategic environmental assessment
(SEA), voluntary agreements, and economic
instruments targeted toward improving
the environment. Other opportunities
for integration include the privatisation
process - which offers a chance for
environmental clean-up of enterprises
- and the national and local environmental
action plans that afford the opportunity
to look at environment and health issues
from a cross-sectoral perspective.
At the same time, great
strides have been made in almost all
of the transition countries to establish
the legislative and institutional framework
necessary to meet these challenges.
This has been the real success story
of the past ten years. Countries have
taken up a number of important initiatives
to build capacity. They have developed
legislation, strengthened and restructured
institutions, introduced innovative
policy tools and supported public participation.
With the increasing institutional capacity
of government and other stakeholders,
the performance in policy implementation
has improved across the region.
Overall, transition
has put in motion a fundamental structural
change in environmental policymaking
and implementation in the countries
in transition. What started as a movement
to clean up polluted air, water and
land in the region, turned into a process
contributing to the reform of institutions,
the economy and civil society. In countries
where economic growth has resumed, the
decoupling of pollution from economic
development has begun.
The result is a wealth
of experience and know-how related to
the management of the environment in
the context of transition. This information
is captured in the Environmental Performance
Reviews, and it represents an important
contribution to the general knowledge
about environmental management.
One decade has passed,
and during these ten years, the EPR
programme has generated continued demand
from countries in transition for both
initial and follow-up reviews. The usefulness
of the Reviews has been articulated
by national policy makers and civil
society, particularly those engaged
in environmental policy. The environmental
review process has provided a framework
for the systematic in-depth analysis
of a number of sectoral and cross-sectoral
issues that affect the environment.
I would like to invite the Ministers
at the fifth Ministerial Conference
"Environment for Europe" to welcome
the report and to underline the importance
of the Environmental Performance Review
programme. We believe that the EPR programme
contributes to countries in the region
to improve their management of the environment,
and to promote a continuous dialogue
among UNECE member States. In this context,
we would like to thank the donor countries
for their commitment and their assistance
to the EPR programme through the years.
Funding is crucial to ensure continuity
of the EPR programme which relies heavily
on voluntary contributions of experts
and funds from many donor countries
within the region.
The first cycle of
reviews is coming to an end, and attention
should now be given to designing the
most appropriate format for the second
cycle of reviews. The second Environmental
Performance Reviews could give more
focus to implementation and financing.
They could be more selective in their
coverage, concentrating on issues of
highest priority for the reviewed country.
Finally, integration of environment
into other sectors at all decision-making
levels should underpin the analysis.
To conclude, the main
objective of the programme maintains
to assist Member States to improve their
individual and collective performances
in environmental management with the
goal of achieving sustainable development.
Thank you very much
for your attention.