THE END OF SAIL

The SAIL Project on Local Agenda 21 has reached its end. The project managed to produce good basic sets of information materials on Local Agenda 21 in Russian, Estonian, Latvian, Lithuanian and Polish. The project also successfully promoted LA21 activities, and could also provide some assistance for implementing LA21s in the target countries. 
The workshop approach that was used for planning the materials proved to be a good method for shared learning and creating. The roundtables and national meetings that were organised by the project 

partners were also successful and gathered wide participation from municipal experts, decision-makers and other stakeholders. 
The inflexible bureaucracy on the side of the administering body of the funding source (EU Phare and Tacis Baltic Small Project Facility) caused some problems during the project. This stiffness made, e. g., even small necessary budget reallocations impossible. 
All the materials produced are available from the project partners (contact info available from UBC Secretariat). These materials will no doubt be effectively used for 

The last event within the project was the seminar in Gdansk

advancing Local Agenda 21 in many cities in Russia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland. Some follow-up activities have also been already planned by the UBC and the other project partners.

USE MEA TO FIND PRIORITIES!

HANOVER 2000 CONFERENCE

The need for environmental investments especially in the cities on the Eastern side of the Baltic Sea is great. One of the problems that cities face in decision-making often is: where to start? MEA can make finding the answers easier. 
The results of each MEA include a lot of valuable information for prioritising decisions on environmental investments. The intention with MEA is to offer a tool for city management and environmental experts to analyse and describe the current state of local environment and environmental management, define the strengths and weaknesses and to propose improvements (including proposed order of prioritised investments). 
In the beginning of each MEA, a political commitment to the process is required from the implementing city (preferably city council decision). From the initial decision-making and commitment, the work then proceeds to preparatory work (targeting the 

audit, establishing audit team and twin city partnership for the process, planning, etc.), collecting the data, analysis of data, audit reporting and follow-up. The whole process usually takes at least six months to be thoroughly carried out. After that, the city administration has at its disposal sound information on which to base future strategies and investment decisions. 
The cities that have been implementing MEA so far include Tallinn (EST), Pärnu (EST), Panevëzys (LT), Klaipëda (LT), Marijampole (LT) and Ignalina District (LT), and partially (environmental administration) also Turku (Fin) and Pori (Fin). In addition, as twin city partners, the cities of Helsinki (Fin), Vaasa (Fin), Oskarshamn (Swe), and Kalmar (Swe) have also made a remarkable contribution. The City of St. Petersburg is now also starting the process by way of a staff training project. 
In addition to these cities, the Environmental Centre for Administration and Technology of Lithuania (ECAT-LT) has also been a very important cooperation partner. And, furthermore, in addition to the EU Life Program, also the Nordic Minister Council, the environmental ministries of Finland, Estonia and Lithuania, as well as the World Bank have supported the MEAs so far. 
All these cities and other partners would most likely warmly welcome new partners to take part in the processes, or even in implementing the prioritised improvements proposed as a result of each process.

On 9-12 February, almost 1500 representatives of cities, organisations, national admini-strations, EU and other stakeholders gathered in Hanover, for the Third Pan-European Sustainable Cities Conference. The conference concentrated on the development of the Campaign by review-ing lessons of the past, creating strategies for future, and strengthening political commitment. The Campaign now has over 600 municipalities as members. In the near future, more networks are most likely to be invited to join the Campaign's co-ordinating committee, UBC being one of the candidates. The UBC contributed in many ways to the Conference. UBC VicePresident Gentvilas was one of the plenary speakers. He underlined the will of the UBC to contribute to sustainable development and the necessity for Baltic cities to work on LA21. 
Also the new proposal made by the EC to the European Council and Parliament on establishing a framework of co-operation on sustainable urban policy was discussed. This framework would, among other things, create an improved legal basis for supporting the activities of networks of local authorities working in this field. If approved by the Council and Parliament, this proposal would enable new project proposals to be planned more explicitly for work on sustainable urban policy. The Conference laid a special emphasis on strengthening the work on sustainable development in the EU Accession Countries and in other parts of Central and Eastern Europe.