The survey was posted to the environmental contact persons of the 81 member cities (at that time). As the report was based on personal opinions of persons closely working with LA21 activities in UBC member cities, we assumed that the reliability of the answers was high enough. The return percentage reacted 73 % as 59 UBC member cities returned the survey and 22 did not. Geographically the distribution of received answers is satisfying as all involved countries show a return percentage of 50% or higher.

In the report on which this article is based we decided to use a grouping of the member cities in three comparable geographic groups. 25 member cities belong to the group of East-Baltic (Russia, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania). 15 answers were received from this group (60 % return rate). 34 cities belong to the North-Baltic group (Finland, Sweden and Norway, 26 answers, 76,5 %), and 22 cities are included in the South-Baltic group (Denmark, Germany and Poland, 18 answers, 81,8 %).

Local Agenda 21 Projects

Almost 73 % (43 cities) of the UBC member cities that responded have a LA21 process going on. Eight cities (13,6 %) are planning to start a LA21 in the near future. Only seven (11,9 %) cities were not planning to start one. However, it can be assumed that several of the UBC member cities that did not answer the questionnaire belong to this group as the questions to a large extent were about LA21 activities within the city. However, considering even the missing cases, at least more than half of all UBC members are involved in LA21 activities (43 cities, 53,1 %). We also know that there are cities with a working LA21 project, that did not answer this questionnaire.

The first LA21 project was started in 1992, and the most active year to start new projects was 1997 when 11 new projects were initiated. Only 4 _ 5 new projects are planned to start during 1998 _ 2000 in the cities that answered the survey. According to the survey, 33 cities (40,7 %) stated that they already have an LA21 Action Plan, and have moved thus onwards from the planning phase of the LA21 project. A further 7 cities (14 %) responded that they have some other kind of local plan for sustainable development, and only 10 cities answered that they had neither. Most active in starting LA21 projects seem to be the North-Baltic cities.

Our study confirmed the assumption that LA21 activities are most profoundly driven in the Nordic countries. Also in cities belonging to the South-Baltic group the LA21 activity level is rather high as only 16,7 % of these cities are not involved in any form of local level sustainability process. The activity level is considerably lower in the East-Baltic member cities, as only one out of four cities of this group that answered our questionnaire have started a LA21 project. There is, however, a strong will to start such projects also in this group, as close to half of these cities are planning to start a LA21 project.

There are three very active initiators of LA 21 projects. In over 21% of the cases the environmental administration of the cities has either alone or together with other actors initiated the LA21 project. The City leadership also seems to have been an active initiator of LA21 projects, according to the survey in almost 15 % of the cases. A third active agent seems to be the local environmental organisations, active in about 13 % of the cases.

Effects of LA21 in the Cities

LA21 projects have, according to Rio, two main targets. First of all, to improve the state of the local environment, and secondly, to improve the civic participation of local residents, especially women, children, indigenous people, disabled, and other societal minorities. The overall answers tell us at least one thing. Most UBC member cities consider LA21 to have a moderate or even significant effect on the local level decision-making procedures. The pattern is clear: LA21 is supposed to have effects both on the decisions concerning the city environment and also to improve the possibility for the public to participate in the decision-making process. The "South-Baltic" expectations towards LA21 are a bit higher than the North-Baltic ones, and clearly higher than in the East-Baltic area.