Based on a broad consensus among civil society and government representatives, a strategic framework for Ukrainian civil society development for the period 2016-2020 was included in the National Strategy for the Creation of an Enabling Environment for Civil Society Development. Approved by the President of Ukraine, this National Strategy emphasizes, among other things, an insufficient level of harmonization of national legislation with EU legislation as well as the use of best European practice for civil society development and partnerships. Furthermore, it highlights that there is a lack of a unified national information and education policy in the field of CSO capacity development. To tackle the above-mentioned issues, since 2005 Ukraine has been actively participating in the UNECE Committee meetings, especially in UNECE Steering Committee meetings on Education for Sustainable Development (http://www.unece.org/env/esd.html). In 2005, member States adopted the UNECE Strategy on Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) to promote ESD in the region. The Strategy is a practical instrument to incorporate key themes of sustainable development into the region's education systems. For the last few years, Ukraine has made good progress and presented the best practices of ESD promotion with broad CSO participation in UNECE Steering Committee meetings. Moreover, the CSO network ?Education for sustainable development? in Ukraine (http://www.ecoosvita.org.ua/) was established to unite over 200 stakeholders for more effective promotion of an ESD Strategy in Ukraine.
Recent consultations of the applicant and CSO network ?Education for sustainable development? in Ukraine as well as discussions during the 11th meeting of the UNECE Steering Committee on Education for Sustainable Development revealed that protected area infrastructure is one of the best platforms to introduce ESD principles. One of the key issues for Protected Areas management in Ukraine is the lack of capacities, communications, networks and understanding of local communities, educational institutions, and staffs in PAs regarding the necessity of participatory governance for PAs. By applying an intra-sectoral and cross-sectoral approach through cooperation, partnership and networking at the local level, this project aims to enhance capacities of CSOs involved in the implementation of a number of sustainable development initiatives along with public institutions involved in nature conservation and other stakeholders.
The proposed project will aim at fostering a structured dialogue in the consultation process in the triangle of the different key stakeholders: Ukrainian CSOs, Ukrainian PA administrations, and educational institutions. CSOs participation in the process of shaping, monitoring and evaluating public involvement in PA governance at the national level will ensure successful implementation of reform processes. Previous SGP work on ESD shows that there is a crucial need of wider stakeholder involvement in introducing ESD principles for PAs management, based on EU best practices.
This approach is very timely as the upcoming Ministerial Conference ?Environment for Europe? (EfE) taking place June 8-10, 2016, in Batumi, Georgia, includes ESD as a main agenda item. The ?Environment for Europe? process should continue to serve as a mechanism in the region and in Ukraine to improve environmental governance, contributing to sustainable development; enhance the implementation of strengthened national environmental policies; support convergence of environmental policies and approaches; encourage the participation of civil society; and promote broad horizontal environmental cooperation.
The proposed project will contribute to Ukraine?s CSOs participation in the Conference as well as the implementation of its resolutions in Ukraine.
In the course of the project, the project implementation team, namely Network member-CSOs, the State Environment Academy and other stakeholders will organize an Awareness Raising Workshop to present background information and facilitate discussions on the concept of the ESD Strategy for Protected Areas.
The participation of relevant civil society groups such as national NGOs, local communities, PA management/administrations, policy makers, scientists, youth, educational institutions, local authorities and business representatives in different stages of the project will be actively promoted.