1
PAC 2/7/1
14 November 2005
DRAFT
CSR meeting in Stockholm on 17 November 2005, Agenda Item 8 d)
Partnership Annual Conference on 18 November 2005
Agenda Item 7 a). Progress Report 2005 of the Committee of Senior Rrepresentatives
CSR meetings
The CSR has held three meetings during 2005: in Vilnius on 14 – 15 April, in Helsinki on 4 – 5 October (extra meeting) and in Stockholm on 17 November.
Partners
During the past year Germany, while assuring Partners its commitment, has assumed the status of Associated Partner in connection with the Chair’s initiative to authorise legal capacity to the Secretariat. Germany has expressed its readiness to continue contributing, as far as possible, financially to the Partnership on a project basis.
After two years the Partnership has 20 Partners, compared to 23, when it was launched two years ago. The following countries and organisations/cooperation bodies are now Partners: Canada, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, Poland, the Russian Federation, Sweden, the European Commission, the WHO, the Barents Euro Arctic Council, the Council of the Baltic Sea States, the International Labour Organisation, the International Organisation for Migration, the Nordic Council of Ministers and the UNAIDS.
Secretariat
The Secretariat has three employees. The Head of Secretariat is jointly financed by Partners, and the Senior Adviser is seconded by Finland, Norway and Sweden. They are located in Stockholm, while a Senior Adviser is seconded by the Nordic countries through the Nordic Council of Ministers (NCM) and located in the NCM Information Office in St. Petersburg.
The Secretariat is co-located with the Permanent Secretariat of the Council of Baltic Sea States (CBSS) in Stockholm. This arrangement allows the sharing of overhead as well as administrative functions and costs. Sweden carries the costs for office space and has also carried the overhead costs for the Partnership Secretariat.
Unexpectedly much attention has had to be devoted to the formal establishment of the Secretariat through the authorisation of legal capacity to the Secretariat. Due to legal problems in Germany, a process initiated by the Chair could not be concluded. It restarted after Germany had assumed the status of Associated Partner. The first step of a renewed process for authorising legal capacity to the Secretariat has not yet been concluded.
The Secretariat assists the CSR to prepare the PAC and the meetings of the CSR. It functions under the direction of the CSR Chair. It also provides support to the Partnership expert groups and keeps in contact with Partners, organisations, financing institutions and all other interested bodies and facilitate co-ordination enhanced cooperation in other ways. The Secretariat is responsible for the website and the work on the database.
In the following the report will be based on the Partnership Work Programme for 2005.
Focus in the priority areas
The work programme for 2005 emphasized that the fight against HIV/AIDS is of major concern and will be a core fore activities promoted by the Partnership during 2005 in all areas of priority of the Oslo Declaration.
It is in the field of HIV/AIDS that progress has been made as regards activities, through the Barents HIV/AIDS programme. It is also expanding to other parts of North Western Russia, notably St. Petersburg. This programme and its implementation has been made possible through financial and other contributions from Finland, Norway and the Russian Barents region. The programme was taken forward and implemented with the active participation of Russian local, regional and federal authorities. It aims at strengthening the national capacity to respond to the epidemic. A special focus is placed on the most vulnerable groups in this context. The participatory way of elaborating the programme will be used as a model for expanding the programme and for elaborating programmes in other areas.
In the fields of prison health and primary health care important areas – or strategies - of co-operation have been identified, aiming at strengthening the health and other societal structures. In these areas however, lacking resources for the support of the relevant Expert Groups have not made it possible for the Partnership to make concrete progress.
The work programme for 2005 underlines the need for the Partnership to support local, regional and federal programmes, and Partners have an important role to present these programmes. This has been done in the expert groups, where possible, but also to a certain extent directly to the Secretariat, by Russian authorities. These proposals are now under study.
Following up the policy discussion at the PAC in Tallinn on the subject of strengthening of economic and social development through public health interventions, especially in the field of alcohol and tobacco, as well as the results of one of the PAC side events in Tallinn the CSR has decided to set up an Expert Group on Non-Communicable Diseases and Promotion on Healthy and Socially Rewarding Lifestyles. It will develop the co-operation on three main themes: alcohol, young people’s lifestyles and occupational health.
This new development and broadened focus of cooperation is a considerable step forward and a support to sectors to which attention has been given only to a limited extent by international actors earlier. At the same time, however, due to the postponement of the first Expert meeting it has not been possible to make progress during the year. The meeting will now take place as a side event to the PAC 2005, with WHO EURO and ILO as co-organisers.
Finally, many Partners have implemented or financed bilateral projects during the year. Some of these have been accounted for in the CSR; this has contributed to more transparency, however, there has not been room for an organized, systematic co-ordination in this context.
Partnership Co-ordinating and Financing Mechanism/Voluntary Fund
Following up the PAC 2004 and recommendations from the Ad Hoc Working Group on a Voluntary Fund, the CSR reached an agreement on a Partnership Co-ordinating and Financing Mechanism/Voluntary Fund at its meeting in Vilnius in April. CSR has furthermore agreed on guidelines for the appropriations account and on other details around the mechanism such as the development of a database, the role of the expert groups and an action plan, the role of which is to present actions, not only limited to projects in the database, that the CSR wishes to promote for funding.
Due to the time needed for the development of a project-pipeline database it will not be possible for the mechanism to function fully until March 2006, provided that funding is allocated. On the other hand, already now the appropriations account is open for contributions from Partners and other interested actors.
The Ad Hoc Working Group has been dissolved on the understanding that it can be reconvened should the CSR so decide.
Development of related co-ordination tools
According to the CSR agreement on a Co-ordinating and Financing Mechanism/Voluntary Fund, the elaboration of further details should attach emphasis to a strong development of the database and website during the first year of operation.
In April an application was made to the EU Public Health Programme for funding of an advanced database containing an analytical tool, to be used for the Co-ordinating and Financing Mechanism. However, the application was placed on the reserve list and thus, so far it has not yet been financed. In order for the Partnership to make progress as regards the Co-ordinating and Financing Mechanism the CSR instead decided that existing databases should be developed and used until a more advanced tool could be funded. The Norwegian Barents Secretariat has contributed to developing a plan for a Project Pipe-line database. This tool will be dependent on voluntary financing.
A website ( was established at the end of 2004.
Expert groups and networks
The Expert Groups have an instrumental role for the progress of the Partnership, in taking initiatives or elaborating programmes or projects to be promoted by the Partnership. They contribute to co-ordination and better efficiency both as regards financing and as regards results.
Mandates have been given to the Expert Groups on HIV/AIDS, Prison Health and Primary Health Care. However, funding of the elaboration of programmes, experts to assist the Expert Groups and Partners is voluntary, which has resulted in only a limited support. The Expert Group on HIV/AIDS has been financed by Finland. It works on the basis of a strategy programme. It has contributed to the Barents HIV/AIDS programme and has offered Partners to use the group for projects they wish to implement in their countries. The Expert Groups on Prison Health and on Primary Health Care have identified important areas for co-operation but have not been funded.
The network on training (Baltic Health TraiN) is financed through the EU Public Health Programme. However, as those resources have been rather limited the activities have been limited. The EU financing is focused to training in the field of HIV/AIDS.
A decision has been taken to establish an Expert Group on Non-Communicable Diseases and Promotion of Healthy and Socially Rewarding Lifestyles, focusing on alcohol, young people’s lifestyles and occupational health and safety.
Initiated at the PAC last year, and through the co-ordination of the Nordic Council of Ministers, a Network under the auspices of the Partnership have been established for task forces/networks/working groups in the field of trafficking of human beings.
The CSR has invited the CBSS Working Group for co-operation on Children at Risk as well as the Baltic Sea Network on Occupational Health and Safety (BSN) to function as expert groups to the Partnership, in accordance with its original mandate and the objectives of the Partnership.
Involvement of more actors
Above all, the Secretariat has presented the Partnership and taken part in many events at regional level in North West Russia. Through the Barents HIV/AIDS programme the health and social authorities of Barents regions have been more closely involved in the Partnership co-operation. The Chair has had visit exchanges at Ministerial level and Vice Governor of St. Petersburg.
Furthermore, contacts have been established with the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, USA, as well as the European Centre for Disease Control and Prevention in Stockholm. In contacts between Spain, Finland, and the Chair, Spain expressed an interest in contributing in the co-operation on HIV/AIDS.
Information activities
The CSR has adopted an information strategy for the Partnership. It will help the Partnership in reaching its goals through making the work and achievements of the Partnership better known, to provide information about the Partnership and other related cooperation activities and, finally, to provide user friendly access of the public of all non-restricted documentation produced within the framework of the Partnership.
The Partnership website is open to the public and is being used for the dissemination of information.
For further information activities, see the paragraph above concerning the involvement of more partners.
Action Plan for the Partnership
An Action Plan for the Partnership has been elaborated. It contains concrete activities that the CSR wants to promote for financing and thus forms an important part of the Co-ordinating and Financing Mechanism. Reference is made to the paragraph above on this Mechanism.
Possible further development of the Partnership
According to the last section of the Oslo Declaration, the possible further development of the Partnership is to be considered by the Partners before the end of 2005, based on the experience of the first two years. The CSR is to propose to the PAC recommendations on the structural or operational changes it considers necessary in order to develop the full potential of the Partnership. In order to receive a basis for recommendations, Partners have been invited to reply to a questionnaire. This evaluation will be the subject of a discussion and possible decisions at PAC.
Conclusion
The experiences made during the year clearly show that as long as the necessary tools for the promotion of enhanced co-operation and improved co-ordination are not in place or very weak it is very difficult to make much progress in concrete terms. The tools presently needed are above all the funding of the costs of the elaboration by expert groups of programmes, assist interested Partners, etc., as well as a database to support co-ordination and resource raising for activities, studies etc. that the Partnership wants to promote. These are necessary elements in order to finally put into place the Co-ordinating and Financing Mechanism/Voluntary Fund. It now seems that there are signs of a positive development under way and that next year new resources can be expected to be better.