Development and Environment: Peer learning in the Baltic and Scandinavian Countries

How to plan and assess the impacts of the development cooperation programmes to the environment?”- was the question constantly raised among the participants of the second training course of the Baltic-Nordic NGO capacity building programme. The programme entitled "Development Cooperation in the Nordic and the Baltic Countries: NGO-to-NGO Training and Networking” was implemented from 12 to 14 January 2012, in Vilnius,Lithuania. It aimed at strengthening Lithuanian, Latvian, Estonian, Danish, Finnish and Swedish NGOs working in the field of development cooperation (NGDO).

Andreas Ulfsax, Policy advisor from the Swedish organisation Diakonia introduced the participants to an “Environmental lens”, a tool that can help practically assess the environmental impacts on the projects and vice versa, taught the participants how to use it within their respective organisations. The international framework for the environmental issues in development co-operation and in particular the Finish NGDO preparation for the Rio+20 summit, reflection on the new EU development policy „Agenda for change“ were presented by Rilli Lappalainen, Secretary General of Kehys. Finally, the participants had a chance to reflect the relation between the environmental sustainability and international development, to learn from the success case studies from Latvia and Finland. This capacity building programme- the first of such kind- is a result of the successfull cooperation amongst the Baltic and Scandinavian NGDO platforms. The first training focusing on sustainable development was implemented on 27- 28 October, 2011. The implementation of the programme was supported by the Nordic Council of Ministers Office in Lithuania and the Association of the Local Authorities in Lithuania.

Material about the event is available here .
For more information contact marta.cubajevaite@eesc.lt

Information provided by Marta Cubajevaite, EESC