Earmarked Grants Team Leader explains Program Plan for 1995

The pilot year of the REC's Earmarked Grants Program is about to end. The following explains how the REC's and NGOs' experiences over the past year will shape next year's Program.

The quality and quantity of incoming project proposals prove that our program is useful and important to NGOs in 13 Central and Eastern European countries (Albania, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Poland, Romania, Slovak Republic, Slovenia).

International cooperation, European Nature Conservation Year 1995

Our intent is to preserve the structure that we used in 1994, although we have decided to announce new topics. The Council of Europe has declared 1995 the "European Nature Conservation Year (ENCY)." We thought that we could show our commitment to international cooperation by supporting activities related to the ENCY. In August 1994 we conducted a needs assessment to determine the priority concerns of Central and Eastern European NGOs, and the results of the survey show that nature conservation is a very popular topic. Through our cooperation with the ENCY program, we hope to bring NGOs in the Region closer to their western European environmentalist partners. We would also like to increase international cooperation. That means more networking and partnerships among groups in the Region.

Earmarked topic areas

The overall intention of the ENCY program is spelled out as "nature conservation outside the borders of national parks," thus we can support this international program without being obliged to narrow our scope and jeopardize the NGO community's interests, and consequently, our mission in the Region.
Accordingly, we have set up four topics, with the following tentative categories and scopes. The specific details and scope of each topic will be announced every three months in 1995 through an official call for project proposals that will be published in The Bulletin.
  1. Classical Nature Conservation
    We witnessed extremely strong interest in classical nature conservation in 1994; the greatest number of proposals and the highest quality proposals were submitted under this earmarked topic. We regret that we had to reject so many excellent proposals because of our limited funds, and we certainly want to continue to support activities in this important area. Based on this year's topic and on our needs assessment, the 1995 topic will apply to the following: fauna, flora, woodlands, protected areas, and wetlands. (Look for the call for project proposals in this issue of The Bulletin.)
  2. Rural problems
    Agricultural problems will be the primary focus of this topic. Our experience with this year's "Sustainable Agriculture" topic will be very useful for outlining the scope of the 1995 topic. The needs assessment revealed interest in the following areas: eco-tourism, land reclamation, sustainable agriculture, and agricultural pollution. (Call for project proposals: January; deadline for submitting proposals: 1 April.)
  3. Industrial problems
    1994's "Pollution Prevention" topic will serve as the base for the next announcement, and will be supplemented by special announcements on energy problems. Many NGOs were disappointed with the absence of a special energy topic in 1994. We hope this topic will meet their needs. Subtopics will be: air pollution, alternative energy, industrial waste problems, and water pollution (focusing on industrial pollution sources). (Call for project proposals: April; deadline for submitting proposals: 1 July.)
  4. Urban and community problems
    The subtopics here will focus especially on community problems of cities and villages, such as: domestic waste, environmental health, and transportation. (Call for project proposals: July; deadline for submitting proposals: 1 October.)

Changes from 1994

Environmental Education, and NGO Sustainability were of high interest to the NGOs who responded to our needs assessment. Please note that NEITHER OF THESE WILL BE TOPICS IN 1995. In our view, education can be integrated into any topic and so we shall not have a separate category for it. Instead, we encourage project proposals for educational or public awareness raising activities under the specified topic areas.
Another significant change in the 1995 program is the reduction of the maximum amount of money available for a project. The main reason for this reduction is that we would like to be able to award more grants. Currently we have a 1:6 ratio of awards to applications. This often involves rejecting high-quality projects. Since we do not have unlimited funds, we thought this would be the best way of implementing the greatest number of projects.
Please note that the abovementioned topics and deadlines are tentative. Slight modifications or time shifts may occur without altering the basic aims of the topics.

Contributed by the Earmarked Grants Team

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THE BULLETIN * AUTUMN 1994