UBC AGENDA 21 MEETING

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The cities of Kaunas, Nacka and Visby had expressed preliminary interest to lead such a project. 
Spreading Good Practices 
UBC has started the Best City Practice Project (funded by the Nordic Minister Council), which aims at disseminating the results of the environmental award scheme 1999. Spreading good practices is one of the most characteristic ways how a city network can bring added value to its members. The intention is that the project would consist of three workshops where good practices would be presented both onsite and in the seminar room. The workshops would be complemented by benchmarking exercises in city pairs or smaller groups of cities. Planned Activities 
· 3 workshops, first one in autumn 2000 and the last one in 2001 on the occasion of the UBC general conference, 
· Principle of "no free tickets" and sustainable working in the project -use emails and other modes of e-communication, 
· involve politicians to some of the seminars? 
European Regards from CEMR 
The meeting also had the pleasure to be attended by Mr Edward Cameron from the Council of European Municipalities and Region (CEMR). In the addition to CEMR Mr Cameron represented also the European Sustainable Cities and Towns Campaign, being one of the five European city networks that belong to the co-ordinating committee of the Campaign. 
Mr. Cameron emphasised the will of CEMR and the Campaign in general to strengthen co-operation with the UBC. He briefly informed the meeting about the history, future developments, and information activities of the campaign. More information can be obtained from the website www.sustainable.cities.org. 
More networks are most likely to be invited to join the Campaign's coordinating committee, UBC being one of the candidates. Mr. Cameron stated that CEMR is positive about opening the CoCom for new members, and he closed his presentation by inviting the UBC to cooperate with CEMR in planning and organising a conference on sustainable development and Local Agenda 21. This conference is being planned to be organised in Malmö, Sweden, during the Swedish EU Presidency in 2001.

The UBC Local Agenda 21 Working Group and Commission on Environment met in Riga 16-18 March. 50 representatives of member cities and cooperation organisations participated, and the Agenda 21 work of the UBC was again taken a few steps ahead. Workshops on different topics proved to be a very effective way to proceed. 
The meeting focused on the implementation of UBC Local Agenda 21 Action Program 2000-2002, offered an overview of current developments of Baltic 21 and the European Sustainable Cities and Towns Campaign, and the new initiatives of the European Commission. Experiences were exchanged by short presentations from participants. Working methods included workshops for developing the project ideas of the action program into concrete projects. 
Status of UBC Agenda 21 
The UBC Local Agenda 21 Action Program currently includes 16 projects and/ or project ideas. Seven of these are ongoing and nine are still more or less at the planning stage. All the active projects were presented, and the meeting elaborated the different project and activity ideas of the program in five workshops: Management Systems, Information Materials, Youth Projects and Networking, Democracy and Local Agenda 21, and Spreading Good Practices. The workshops resulted in several proposals for future activities. 
Management Systems 
The group agreed that increasing the use of management systems is a good goal for the UBC. The UBC could contribute to this goal, e.g., by exchanging experiences and developing human capacities. The group proposed the following activities: 
· organising a feasibility study on management systems in the BSR (in cooperation with ECAT and REC), and 
· organising a kick-off conference for further activities / projects. In such a conference DG Environment should also be involved. The results of the feasibility study, examples from EU and pilot projects from different Baltic States could contribute to the contents.
Information Materials 
This workshop wanted to underline the function of LA 21 as a long-term

process for sustainable development. And from this comes a conflict: Agenda 21 is a long-term process, but the politicians are elected for short terms. Also, there is not enough cooperation within the municipalities, and because of this 

Workshop on information materials

it is very difficult to spread the information (as a result, e. g., the citizens do not know much about LA 21). The group proposed the following activities: 
· organising a pre-feasibility study (could be partly follow-up to the 1998 UBC Local Agenda 21 Survey) including questions directly to different target groups (mayors, council chairs, experts). Association of Estonian Cities had expressed interest to co-operate in such a survey. 
· on the basis of the survey, planning a project on information materials. 
Establish Youth Commission? 
This group came to the conclusion that a UBC Commission on Youth should be founded. Such commission would give status and accountability for youth cooperation. The commission could concentrate, e. g., on the following activities: 
· networking and developing activities and projects, 
· work on anti-discrimination, sustainable development, EU-enlargement, and contacts with youth NGOs, and 
· Agenda 21 could be used as one framework and tool for the work. 
Democracy and Local Agenda 21 
The group proposed an idea of a project on indicators for local democracy. The aim would be raising awareness and measuring dialogue and involvement (democracy indicators), and the problem addressed would be unequal involvement of social groups and lack of democratic structures. Such project could consist of the following activities: case studies, developing democracy indicators and the results could be presented in book-