BALTIC SEAENVIRONMENT PROCEEDINGS No. 59 - Helcom

3. Role of the East Europe Project
Developing a programme is always a learning process and
consequently previous lessons have to be studied with
care. In reference to the above our role will continue
firstly as advisory one in the development of the necessary
environmental administration through practical
operations, secondly as promoter for environmental investments
and thirdly as policy-maker in cooperation with
the respective authorities and international organizations.
We consider both policy-making and promotion of investments
equally important. However, any investments have to
follow requirements set by national and regional policies.
In any case external support to investments will
reduce the risks for the governments to allocate funds
for the benefit of the environmental projects.
Moreover, the project will act as a channel to promote
cooperation between companies from Finland and the cooperating
countries for joint development of environmental
technologies. The project encourages studies and other
steps which would lead to potential commercial
partnerships.
4. Critical Steps
There are enormous needs craving for solutions within the
sector simultaneously. Due to grave economical situation
the environmental sector as a whole will not receive
adequate funds from the national resources to carry out
even the most urgent actions. Major contributions are
required externally.
In order to proceed smoothly for improving the utility
performance national sectoral master plans are inevitable
starting points. Also for development of these plans
external technical assistance (both finance and expertise)
is required.
However, the performance of most utilities remains below
requirements at the moment due to various reasons. In
order to maintain any performance level some immediate
actions have to be taken. It would be of great benefit to
define before the Gdansk meeting even the vital needs at
the moment i.e. what are the requirements in the shortest
future to keep the utilities in running condition. On the
findings a short-term programme could be drafted in a
reasonably short period of time.
Both of these steps are critical and have to be developed
simultaneously. We should bear on our minds that the
water supply and sewerage utilities are working under
extremely difficult circumstances with scores of daily
problems to overcome. At the same safe water is one of
the crucial commodities to be quaranteed in a modern
society in a reliable way. This is our common task.
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