Civil Society

In the past years, after EU Water Framework Directive (EU WFD) entered into force, a lot of activities related to help countries implement this new EU directive have been conducted. Not only member states committed themselves to fulfill objectives of the Directive, that should lead to achieving  "good ecological and chemical status"  by 2015, but also accession countries as well as some of non accession counties (e.g. Serbia and Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina by signing the Danube Convention committed themselves to implement WFD).

Public participation in river basin management planning is obligation under the Article 14 of the WFD not only in the form of the passive information supplies but also in the form of the consultation of the public whereas active involvement should be encouraged.

However, current status of civil society involvement in B&H is not very well. Although public participation is obligation under WFD it has not been taken into account in proper way so far and public does not know what has been going on top decision-making and management level. Some of biggest problems between civil society (NGOs) and authorities have been occurred because of lack of cooperation and inadequate, or to late involvement.

There are some projects which involve civil society, but only through informing them, and without any active involvement.

In future, we are expecting more coordination between river basin authorities and civil society for successful application of IWRM. One of the reasons for this lays in fact that new Water Law in B&H, which is created in line with guidelines of WFD, propose involvement of civil society as much as it is possible. Also, this law foresees establishing of Water District Advisory Council, where active involvement should be delegated to civil society as members of this body.

In B&H, legal framework for public participation and access to information is created by entity environmental laws and Low on free access to information.

 The Law defines that public has the right on access to information, possibility to participate in process of decision making and protection of these rights in court or administrative procedure, without any kind of discrimination regards citizenship, nationality or residence, or place of registration in case of legal bodies". The entity Laws on environment prescribes an obligation of the competent ministry to ensure public participation in:

- procedures on Environmental Impact Assessment of projects

- procedures on issuing environmental permits for installations within the scope of their responsibilities .

This provision shall also be applied to all other activities that might have significant effect on the environment.

In practice the level of implementation of environmental laws and provisions related to public participation and access to information differs. Federal ministry of environment has achieved significant progress in implementation of the Law since summer 2003 when is adopted. It can be stated that they formally apply provision related to public participation according to the Law, especially those related to public hearing during permitting and EIA procedure. Information and documentation on EIA projects and environmental applications could be regularly found on the web site of the federal Ministry. Wider public is informed on ongoing procedures by call for public hearing published in daily magazines. It is open to all public to contribute to the public hearing procedure. In some cases greater interest is generated while in some cases, minor representatives of civil society participate. Although very important and with potential negative impact environment, recent procedure on public hearing related to EIA study for Small Hydro-Power Plant in Vitez generated very low interest of public. On contrary, in some cases like recent EIA procedure for construction of road in sensitive area of river Rakitnica Canyon a group of NGOs showed great interest and complained that the procedure was not transparent and that the Ministry did not take into account public opinion. This group of NGOs is still seeking for the Ministries response to their appeal. They submitted official note to the Ministry beginning of 2005, on which they still did not receive any response. The daily newspaper "Oslobođenje" also showed an interest for this issue by publishing one article about the problem (http://www.zone-2000.net/eko05/oslobodj01.htm).

Unfortunately such kind of information could not be found on web site of Government of Republika Srpska. The site has been established during 2002 within the REReP 1.8 project "Establishment of environmental information system". Although the project aimed to build capacity of the ministries staff and to increase level of information exchange between relevant intuitions, with final goal of access to EIONET structure, very little information about ministry and relevant legislation have been posted. After the project ended the site (www.mupgie.rs.ba) is not accessible any more. A NGOs criticism about this issue has been expressed on web site of the EKO Mreza NGO network ( http://www.ekomrezabih.net).

Eko Mreza also leads campaign against construction of hydro-power plants. A petition against building hydropower plants on river of Vrbas has been signed by 11000 citizens during campaign organized in Banjaluka on March 23.2005. Public debate between NGO representatives and representatives of public energetic sector has been organized by TV RTRS. The analysis of the campaign and the debate shows that both sides did not provide enough arguments for the public. Since the both entity governments focuses development of energetic sector on hydro-power there is still need for further debates and deep assessment of the problem.

Civil society has been involved in preparation of two very important documents for B&H, National Environmental Plan-NEAP and Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper-PRSP.

It is evident that organisations of civil society are able to mobilize the voice of environmental concerns, therefore they should be able to make this voice more qualified and adequate to the challenges and problems actually being debated. In addition, our opinion is that civil society should be involved at the very beginning of decision making processes, in order to achieve the best possible outcomes.

Having in mind mentioned, and to prepare for coming challenges, NGOs in this region have been organized in network named Danube Environmental Forum-DEF. Members of this network are NGOs from all 13 countries from Danube River Basin. Supported by Danube Regional Project and ICPDR, in last few years DEF organized serial of workshops and the main topics were EU Water Framework Directive Implementation with focus on Public Participation obligations, approaches and methods within the Directive and the role of NGOs in the implementation of the EU Water Framework Directive. As a member of DEF, B&H NGOs were involved in these workshops and build necessary capacities.

Also it is important to mention new regional project named Strengthening NGO participation in EU WFD implementation in Sava River Basin. Partner of this project are NGOs from Sava river basin (Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia and Montenegro), and trough this project they will focus on raising NGO capacity on WFD implementation and strengthening cooperation among different stakeholders relevant for the Sava River Basin water management.

DEF members from B&H are also involved in producing handbook for NGOs and public on access to information and public participation in water related decision making.

Local or river basin authorities As it is mentioned before, new draft of Water Law in B&H is created, and soon it should be adopted. This law proposes following institutional setup:

- At state level, the water sector will be represented by the State (Water and) Environment Agency (SEA);

- In compliance with WFD, 2 River Basin Districts are considered, one for the Adriatic Sea and one for the Sava (Danube);

- With 2 Entity governments, sharing these River Basin Districts, the minimum number of River Basin District Organisations (Entity Agencies for Water, EAW) is 4 (2 for each Entity);

 - The EAWs will be responsible for integrated water resources management;

- The EAWs will have a number of branch-offices in the regions, responsible for the respective sub-basin, incorporating some existing institutions and some new;

- The division of responsibilities between EAW offices, their branch offices, Cantons and other lower level authorities will be based on practical considerations regarding the sharing of responsibilities in water management.

New law does not propose any specific actions for capacity building of authorities.

In future, activities on strengthening capacities both for authority and civil society sectors can be examined. Our opinion is that the best possible way to overcome possible problems between these two sectors is to engage them on solving water issues on small river basins through Pilot projects. By this we mean organizing trainings on water management for both sectors, and to carry out learned measures in their area. Pilot projects will provide capacity building for both sectors and establish base for good cooperation between them in the future. Also, in that way, civil society will be involved at very beginning of the decision making process, and possible conflicts will be avoid.