Local/Regional Economic Development in South ... - Value Chains

98 tre. An organizational chart and job profiles were drawn
up for the environmental agency and discussed with the
municipal representatives. At the same time, an informational
brochure on the structure and tasks of the environmental
agency was drawn up and made available to
interested citizens.
Waste management and environmental education in Telawi:
In Telawi there is no regulated waste disposal. The
project supported the preparation of a waste management
concept (e. g. implementation of a household waste analysis,
preparation of a fee system). The legal framework conditions
were created through passage of waste disposal regulations
and a fee scale by the Sakrebulo (assembly). This
advisory measure was linked to a complementary smallscale
measure: the call for bids for the purchase of waste
disposal vehicles was completed, and the first three vehicles
have been purchased. The city of Telawi has placed
funds for systematic waste disposal in the budget (purchase
of garbage containers). Presently, the focus lies on
environmental education in the thematic areas of waste
prevention and disposal. An environmental action day is
planned for fall 2005.
Registry of contaminated sites and environmental education
in Sumgait: The city of Sumgait must deal with many
highly contaminated industrial sites and a great deal of
toxic waste. In order to prevent further danger to people
and the environment from these contaminated areas, advisory
missions from Ludwigshafen will create a simple
registry of contaminated sites, which is useful for further
urban development. A city working group was set up; it
organized the survey of all suspicious sites and made agreements
about their future use. Groundwork was laid for the
improvement of waste disposal and waste treatment (e. g.
analysis of household waste) and, in conjunction with the
waste disposal firm commissioned by the city, a municipal
waste management concept was drawn up. A roundtable
with environmental agencies, schools, and non-governmental
organizations was established, and a multiplier
seminar on environmental education methods was carried
out. Together with local organizations, an Azerbaijani-
German environmental journal was published to inform
citizens about current activities. In fall 2005, there will be
a workshop with the partners from all participating cities.
The previous environmental activities are to be evaluated
and starting points for knowledge transfer identified.
Trip to gather information on environmental education:
In summer 2005, there will be a trip with the participating
Caucasian partners to Saarbrücken and Ludwigshafen
in order to gather information on environmental education.
Impact
The above-mentioned project objective is based on a results
chain, the full description of which, however, would
be too comprehensive. Thus, only a part of the results
chain will be presented here; the idea is simply to illustrate
the links in the chain through examples.
The activities and outputs of the project consist of advising
the various city partnerships on ways to organize traditional
cooperation in a development-oriented manner.
The project supports the deployment of German municipal
experts to the respective partner cities. Subsidy agreements
are concluded with the different city partnerships so
that small-scale measures can be undertaken in support of
the advisory services. Furthermore, the project organizes
information-gathering trips and workshops for exchange
of experiences between the individual city partnerships.
The use of project outputs consists of improvement of
services for citizens by the participating South-Caucasian
partner cities (example: establishment of a citizen’s office
in Tbilissi), strengthening of cooperation between the individual
offices and other municipal development actors
(example: implementation of environmental roundtables
in Sumgait), and measures to concretize the self-help potential
of the cities and their citizens (example: establishment
of a youth center and reconstruction of a music
school in Telawi). Ideas from information-gathering trips
and supraregional workshops to exchange experiences between
the individual city partnerships are collected by the
participating cities and integrated into their daily work
(example: creation of roundtables in Sumgait motivated
Tbilissi to found a cross-agency working group on the environment,
which also includes various non-governmental
organizations).
The impact of the project consist of improved access by
citizens to the city hall (example Tbilissi: citizens know
what their city is doing and who they can contact), increased
environmental awareness of various actors and
routine inclusion of environmental concerns in all urbandevelopment
questions (example Tbilissi and Sumgait),
and active participation in the improvement of quality
of life in their city by a critical mass of citizens (example
Telawi). The participating cities maintain contact to each
other, which allows them to obtain advice from each other
on concrete questions and to support each other.
Lessons learned
During the pilot phase, it became clear that creation of
intermunicipal cooperation in the region would require
a great deal of time and would also have to be limited to
a few work areas. Thus, for example, a meeting of local
politicians from the participating cities in the region only
makes sense if concrete project results are visible, presentable,
and comparable (as briefly presented in the example