ICSTI – INFOTERRA Regional Service Centre for CIS region

ICSTI and UNEP have a history of almost 20 years of mutually beneficial co-operation with ICSTI operating as a regional service centre for the INFOTERRA system. Through the years there have been many changes and developments in the geography of the region that we covered as INFOTERRA RSC. There have also been transformations in the NFPs, the UN organizations in general and UNEP/INFOTERRA in particular. Inevitably our activities in the capacity of INFOTERRA RSC have undergone certain modifications too. Some types of activities ceased altogether. For instance, in early 80-ies apart from functioning as INFOTERRA RSC our centre also used to coordinate environmental information exchange within a special information system of the COMECON countries and served as an interface between these two international environmental information systems. On the other hand, other types of activities have become more prominent – like participation in the development of the multilingual thesaurus of environmental terms. Nonetheless, the general scope of our activities as INFOTERRA RSC have always included such issues as:

• development and support of environmental data bases and services (e.g. the INFOTERRA database),
• methodological assistance in elaboration of general concepts referring to development of environmental information systems,
• translation, publishing and dissemination of INFOTERRA materials in the region (e.g. INFOTERRA bulletin, Specification of INFOTERRA National Focal Point),
• training (e.g., series of training courses for CDS/ISIS users),
• organizations of regional workshops and meetings (e.g., Regional seminar of access to environmental information in Moscow, in May, 1998),
• general promotion of INFOTERRA activities.

Speaking of changes in regional activities we should not miss one major factor. The year 1998 can be called a milestone for those involved in environmental information exchange. We are now living in a “post-Aurhus” setting after the Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters had been adopted at the 4^th ministerial conference in Aurhus in June 1998, as well as the Aurhus Initiative – the strategic plan of action to assist with the implementation of the information pillar of the Convention had been adopted by the pan-European component of the INFOTERRA network.

Now the main emphasis in the work of the INFOTERRA system is to assist and facilitate establishment of formal information services on the environment through a partnership building exercise involving the main environmental information providers and major user groups in each country. With this regard the major objectives for ICSTI as INFOTERRA RSC are to:

• remove bureaucratic, linguistic and technological barriers to information users,
• promote the Aurhus Convention,
• build partnerships between governmental and non-governmental stakeholders,
• contribute to the implementation of the Aurhus Initiative plan of action,
• catalyse the development of national environmental information services,
• monitor and report on the reform of the INFOTERRA.

These objectives have been outlined in a Memorandum of understanding that ICSTI and UNEP/INFOTERRA signed in June 2000 for the period 2000/2001. Being more specific, we would like to highlight some lines of activity that ICSTI will be involved in during 2000/2001 and which among others have been agreed upon within a joint ICSTI/INFOTERRA work plan:

1. Infoterra Regional Service Centre

The Memorandum between ICSTI and UNEP reconfirms ICSTI status as Infoterra regional service centre for the region of the Commonwealth of Independent States or in different terminology - the Newly Independent States. Specifically, we shall be working with partner organizations in the following countries: Armenia, Azerbaidjan, Belarus, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Russian Federation, Tadjikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine and Uzbekistan.

2. Monitoring and reporting to UNEP on implementation of the INFOTERRA reform in the CIS region.

ICSTI will make a survey of national actions taken in the CIS countries to implement the INFOTERRA reform. The objectives of the survey will be:

• to identify major suppliers and users of environmental information in the countries of the region and mechanisms of their interaction (if available),
• to present national actions (already taken or planned) to implement the INFOTERRA reform,
• to analyze the problems facing the process of creating information consortiums in the said countries.

We have started preparing such a survey in June and first replies from the NFPs started arriving late in August. The NFPs in general are supporting the idea of unifying environmental information providers and users into information consortiums and creation of national environmental information systems. Some countries have prepared specific project proposals for creation of national environmental information centres (like, Azerbaidjan) or national environmental information systems (like, Kazakhstan). The Georgian NFP has made an interesting proposal to start publishing an electronic journal covering environmental issues in the CIS.

The major topic with all NFPs in the region is a great interest in capacity building and technical assistance and we see many possibilities for international cooperation here.

In contact and cooperation with the NFPs and the regional NGO community ICSTI will also be involved in the work on assessing the environmental information needs in the region.We have received two questionnaires from the INFOTERRA Secretariat to support such a job. The questionnaires have been translated into Russian and ICSTI will organize work in the region to implement the task. The results will be reported to UNEP.

Together with UNEP, respective NFPs and other interested partners we plan to organize several national workshops on Access to Environmental Information and Public Participation in Environmental Decision-Making. The idea of these workshops is to bring together major players in the national environmental information market and have a direct discussion on the possibilities and scenarios for creating national information consortiums. We have carried out preliminary talks with REFIA - NFP in RF - on staging such a seminar in the last quarter of 2000. We also have a preliminary agreement with the NFP in Ukraine on staging such an event in Kiev in the first quarter of 2001. We plan to organize similar workshops in Georgia, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan.

1. Participation in the development of the global multilingual environmental thesaurus

In the preceding biennial period ICSTI translated, published and started distributing in the region the EnVoc multilingual thesaurus of environmental terms. During 2000/2001 we intend to continue this work together with UNEP, EEA, the CNR team to produce the Russian component of the global multilingual environmental thesaurus. The task will be not only to translate the terms but provide the definitions as well. ICSTI intends to cooperate with Russian professional experts in environmental terminology to ensure the best quality of the end product.

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From our point of view, activities highlighted above, can be considered as explicit demonstrations of a true international and multilateral spirit of environmental information exchange with wide representation of partners from the international community, NGOs and different market sectors. Many NFPs in the region have put emphasis on their will and interest to continue and increase cooperation within the INFOTERRA framework. ICSTI as the RSC will be doing its best to facilitate this development.