Hungarian civil servants to increase knowledge on EU water directives
Thu, 03/02/2005
UNESCO-IHE participates in a project to train 160 Hungarian civil servants in the practical aspects of the European Water Framework Directive.
The key issues demanding specific attention are: characterisation of river basins, monitoring, economic analysis, identification of the environmental objectives, public participation, international river basin management planning, wetland management and relevant policies of the European Union.
The strength of the course relies on enabling participants to discuss the requirements and difficulties of the implementation from different fields of water and environmental expertise and diverse approaches.
Hungary, landlocked in central Europe and with a population of 10,164,000 people, is bordered by seven countries and divided in three by the Danube and the Tisza, two major rivers. The country's crown jewel is the dazzling capital city of Budapest. Hungary is a mostly flat country, dominated by the Great Hungarian Plain east of the Danube. Rivers and water resources play a main role in the country. Rivers run along 2.800 kilometres and a grid of inland water channels connects the country through 8.500 kilometres. The largest lake is Balaton, also known as the “Hungarian Sea”, since with it’s almost 600 square kilometres area it is the largest lake in Central Europe.
Given such an amazing treasure of water resources, it is not surprising that the Hungarian Government always finger-points and nurtures the national environmental strategy. Even before Hungary joined the European Union in May 2004, Governments made clear in several statements that meeting the guidelines of the European Water Framework Directive was a prior strategy.
As consequence, several initiatives were undertaken. One of the most relevant is the training of 160 water and environmental experts working for the administration, in the practical aspects of the European Water Framework Directive. Among the participants selected for the course, there are civil servants from the Ministry of Environment and Water, National Environmental, Nature Conservation and Water Authority, from the 12 Regional Environmental and Water Directorates, the 12 Regional Environmental, Nature Conservation and Water Inspectorates and the 10 National Park Directorates.
Beginning in February, the programme will run for groups of 20 professionals, with a total workload of four weeks, 128 hours for each group. The key issues demanding specific attention are: characterisation of river basins, monitoring, economic analysis, identification of the environmental objectives, public participation, international river basin management planning, wetland management, relevant policies of the European Union.
The training will focus on the practical approaches for the implementation of the directive and a series of case studies will be displayed, maintaining the motivation of the participants to ensure that the skills developed will contribute to the efficiency in their day-to-day work.
The project enjoys a total budget of 275.900 Euros. The consortium is composed by UNESCO-IHE, ECORYS and Grontmij (Dutch partners) and Budapest University of Technology and Economics and the Regional Environmental Centre (Hungarian partners).
Since this training course will be provided in Hungarian (one of the new EU languages) the Budapest University of Technology and Economics will play key role in the implementation, UNESCO-IHE, the contracting member of the consortium will participate with two key-experts, Laszlo Hayde (also project director), and Frank Jaspers.
“If the experience proves successful, the project might open further possibilities to implement the same kind of programmes in other Central and Eastern European countries”, notes the project director.
All the training materials developed for this course will be available for experts at the Hungarian Ministry of Environment and Water website by the end of the programme in June.
The key issues demanding specific attention are: characterisation of river basins, monitoring, economic analysis, identification of the environmental objectives, public participation, international river basin management planning, wetland management and relevant policies of the European Union.
The strength of the course relies on enabling participants to discuss the requirements and difficulties of the implementation from different fields of water and environmental expertise and diverse approaches.
Hungary, landlocked in central Europe and with a population of 10,164,000 people, is bordered by seven countries and divided in three by the Danube and the Tisza, two major rivers. The country's crown jewel is the dazzling capital city of Budapest. Hungary is a mostly flat country, dominated by the Great Hungarian Plain east of the Danube. Rivers and water resources play a main role in the country. Rivers run along 2.800 kilometres and a grid of inland water channels connects the country through 8.500 kilometres. The largest lake is Balaton, also known as the “Hungarian Sea”, since with it’s almost 600 square kilometres area it is the largest lake in Central Europe.
Given such an amazing treasure of water resources, it is not surprising that the Hungarian Government always finger-points and nurtures the national environmental strategy. Even before Hungary joined the European Union in May 2004, Governments made clear in several statements that meeting the guidelines of the European Water Framework Directive was a prior strategy.
As consequence, several initiatives were undertaken. One of the most relevant is the training of 160 water and environmental experts working for the administration, in the practical aspects of the European Water Framework Directive. Among the participants selected for the course, there are civil servants from the Ministry of Environment and Water, National Environmental, Nature Conservation and Water Authority, from the 12 Regional Environmental and Water Directorates, the 12 Regional Environmental, Nature Conservation and Water Inspectorates and the 10 National Park Directorates.
Beginning in February, the programme will run for groups of 20 professionals, with a total workload of four weeks, 128 hours for each group. The key issues demanding specific attention are: characterisation of river basins, monitoring, economic analysis, identification of the environmental objectives, public participation, international river basin management planning, wetland management, relevant policies of the European Union.
The training will focus on the practical approaches for the implementation of the directive and a series of case studies will be displayed, maintaining the motivation of the participants to ensure that the skills developed will contribute to the efficiency in their day-to-day work.
The project enjoys a total budget of 275.900 Euros. The consortium is composed by UNESCO-IHE, ECORYS and Grontmij (Dutch partners) and Budapest University of Technology and Economics and the Regional Environmental Centre (Hungarian partners).
Since this training course will be provided in Hungarian (one of the new EU languages) the Budapest University of Technology and Economics will play key role in the implementation, UNESCO-IHE, the contracting member of the consortium will participate with two key-experts, Laszlo Hayde (also project director), and Frank Jaspers.
“If the experience proves successful, the project might open further possibilities to implement the same kind of programmes in other Central and Eastern European countries”, notes the project director.
All the training materials developed for this course will be available for experts at the Hungarian Ministry of Environment and Water website by the end of the programme in June.