Audit report
Green growth
Integrating the environment into development programmes
September 2005
Acknowledgements
This report has been written thanks to the contributions of the following persons and organisations:
Austria
- Gottfried Lamers, Federal Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, Environment and Water Management Austria
- Andreas Maier, Austrian Conference on Spatial Planning (OEROK)
- Markus Gruber, Consultant, Joanneum Research Forschungsgesellschaft mbh
Greece
- Anna Arvanitaki, Consultant, Poiein kai Prattein
- Klimentia Karagianni, Director, Region of Western Greece – Directory of Environment and Planning, Western Greece Region
- Ioannis Manariotis, Western Greece Region
- Yolanda Ziaka, South Aegean Regional Development Fund
Hungary
- Zoltan Karacsonyi, Director, Centre for Environmental Management and Policy, University of Debrecen
- Jennifer Mc Guinn, the Regional Environmental Center for Central and Eastern Europe
- Tunde Szabo, Researcher, University of Debrecen, Centre for Environmental Management and Policy
- Expert-Europe Consultants
Italy
- Rosa Alessi, Co-ordinator, Calabria Regional Environmental Authority’s Task Force, Environment Department, Calabria Region
- Giovanni Brunelli, Director for Structural Funds, National Environmental Authority for EU Structural Funds, DG RAS Development and Environmental Research, Ministry for Environment and Territory
- Ivana Capozza, Expert, Task Force supporting the Regional Environmental Authority, Environment Department, Strategic Environmental Assessment Unit, Puglia Region
- Aldo Ravazzi Douvan, Co-ordinator, National Environmental Authority for EU Structural Funds, DG RAS Development and Environmental Research, Ministry for Environment and Territory
- Marta Ferrero, Development Agency - Langhe Monferrato Roero, Piemonte Region
- Giacomo Giusto, European project manager, Consortium Med Oro (Orientation, Research, Occupation), Sicily Region
- Myriam Gualtieri, Expert, Task Force supporting the Regional Environmental Authority, Calabria Region
- Luce Mariniello, Expert, Task Force supporting the Regional Environmental Authority, Campania Region
- Fabrizio Massimelli, Development Agency - Langhe Monferrato Roero, Piemonte Region
- Orsola Mautone, Expert, National Environmental Authority for EU Structural Funds, DG RAS Development and Environmental Research, Ministry for Environment and Territory
- Antonio Minetti, Chief executive, Regional Environmental Authority, Marche Region.
- Federico Nucita, Expert, Task Force supporting the Regional Environmental Authority, Department Environment and Territory, Sicily Region
- Angela Pisano, Expert, Task Force supporting the Regional Environmental Authority, Sardinia Region
- Giuseppina Sestito, Environmental Authority, Piemonte Region
- Maria Angela Sorce, Expert, National Environmental Authority, for EU Structural Funds, DG RAS Development and Environmental Research, Ministry for Environment and Territory
- Alessandra Tavernese, Expert, Task Force supporting the Regional Environmental Authority, Calabria Region
Malta
- Marie Briguglio, Manager, EU and Multilateral Affairs, Malta Environment and Planning Authority
- Gordon Cordina, Consultant
- Krista Falzon, Environment Protection Officer, Malta Environment & Planning Authority
- Suzanne Gauci, EU and Multilateral Affairs Co-ordinator, Malta Environment and Planning Authority
- Sergei Golovkin, Projects Officer, EU and Multilateral Affairs Unit, Malta Environment and Planning Authority
Poland
- Bogdan Łukaszewicz, Director, Department of Environmental Protection and Agriculture of the Municipal Office, Municipality of Wroclaw
- Magdalena Michalek, Project Co-ordinator, European Funds Management Office, Municipality of Wroclaw
- Marcin Stoczkiewicz, Consultant, Jendroska Jerzmanski Bar and Partners, Wroclaw
- Dorota Wilusz, Main Specialist, Agriculture and Environmental Department, Municipality of Wroclaw
Spain
- Francisco Cardenas, Barcelona Agency of Urban Ecology
- José Álvarez Díaz, Programmes Co-ordinator, Ministry of Environment, Spanish Network Network of Environmental Authorities
- Ana Alegría Fernández, Integration and Environmental Authority, Environmental Quality general Direction. Ministry of Tourism, Environment and Territorial Politics, La Rioja Region
- Teresa Gil, Environmental Technician, Environment Management, Nurseries and Afforestations of Navarra
- Begona Solorzano Garcia, Ministry of Environment, Spanish Network of Environmental Authorities
- Cristina Salinas García, General Directorate, Foreign Action General Directorate, La Rioja Region
- Santiago Garcia, Environment Management Nurseries and Afforestation PLC, Navarra
- Ana Krebs, Administration Officer, Environment Management Nurseries and Afforestation PLC, Navarra
- Pablo Gil Minguillón, European Facts and Community Financing Manager, Foreign Action General Directorate, La Rioja Region
- Salvador Rueda, Barcelona Agency of Urban Ecology
- Juan Carlos Arbex Sanchez, Consultant
- Jesus Diez Vazquez, Technical Advisor, Regional Economic Development Agency Castilla y Leon
United Kingdom
- Jonathan Coe, Policy and Research Manager, South West of England Regional Development Agency
- Jitka Cox-Benakova, External Funding Officer, Environment Agency for England and Wales.
- Adrian Dawson, Environmental Sustainability Theme Manager Objective Two Programme, Devon County Council
- Hanna Denes, European Funding Officer, Environment Agency for England and Wales
- Alex Fielding, European Funding Manager, Environment Agency for England and Wales
- Ian Hutchcroft, Sustainable Prosperity Manager, Devon County Council
- Andrew May, Policy Advisor, South West of England Regional Development Agency.
- Paul Owens, Bristol Objective Two Action Plan
- Ginnie Parker, Sustainable City and Project Team Manager, Bristol City Council.
- Agata Payne, GRDP Project Manager, Environment Agency for England and Wales
- Brian Shipman, European Policy and Development Officer, Cornwall County Council
- Donna Sibley, Principal Officer, Strategic Environmental Planning Department, Environment Agency for England and Wales
- Vicki Street, Policy and Research Co-ordinator - South West of England Regional Development Agency
- Julie Verré, GRDP Project Officer, Environment Agency for England and Wales
- Mark Yeoman, Deputy Director, Objective One Partnership for Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly
Thanks to:
Rob Richley from Westword and Jo Talbot from Roger Tym and Partners who helped to finalise the report.
Abbreviations
CEA / Competent Environmental AuthoritiesCSF / Community Support Framework
EA / Environmental Authorities
ERDF / European Regional Development Fund
ESF / European Social Fund
ESTM / Environmental Sustainability Theme Manager
EU / European Union
GRDP / INTERREG IIIC project “Greening Regional Development Programmes”
OP / Operational Programme
MA / Managing Authority
MEPA / Malta Environment and Planning Authority
NDP / National Development Plan
NGOs / Non-governmental organisations
PC / Programme Complement
RDP / Regional Development Programme
SEA / Strategic environmental assessment
SFs / Structural Funds
SMEs / Small and Medium Size Enterprises
SPD / Single Programming Document
Table of contents
Acknowledgements 2
Abbreviations 5
1. Introduction 9
1.1 Goals of this report 9
1.2 The audit methodology 9
1.3 Report structure 10
1.4 Clarifying terms 11
1.4.1 Do we really know what we are integrating? 11
1.4.2 Horizontal integration and vertical environmental goals, priorities and projects 12
1.4.3 Development programmes versus economic programmes 13
2 Cohesion Policy and environment 14
2.1 Introduction 14
2.2 Regional policy and the environment 14
2.3 Funding of Regional Policy 15
2.3.1 Structural Funds 16
2.3.2 The Cohesion Fund 19
3 Overview of the programming process 21
3.1 Introduction 21
3.2 Programming process 21
3.2.1 Programming 21
3.2.2 Programming documents 22
3.3 Programming models in Member States 26
3.3.1 Objective 1 and 2 26
3.3.2 Objective 3 26
3.3.3 Cohesion Fund 27
3.4 Local programmes to facilitate the use of Structural Funds 27
3.5 Links between programming documents and other strategic documents 28
4 Integrating the environment into programme development 29
4.1 Introduction 29
4.2 Structural Funds 29
4.2.1 Introduction 29
4.2.2 Objective 1 and 2 29
4.2.3 Objective 3 30
4.2.4 Community Initiatives 31
4.3 Cohesion Fund 31
4.4 Mechanisms to support environmental integration in programme development and management 32
4.5 The importance of partnerships in programme development and management 33
4.5.1 The participation of environmental partners 33
4.6 Looking ahead 36
5 Integrating the environment into programme implementation 37
5.1 Introduction 37
5.2 Project development 37
5.3 Project appraisal 41
5.4 Project implementation 47
5.5 Looking ahead 48
5.5.1 Project development 49
5.5.2 Project appraisal 50
5.5.3 Project implementation 51
6 Monitoring and evaluation of environmental integration 52
6.1 Introduction 52
6.2 Monitoring 52
6.2.1 Monitoring indicators 53
6.2.2 Core indicators and performance indicators 53
6.2.3 Monitoring of priority/measure objectives within programmes 56
6.3 Evaluation 58
6.3.1 Evaluation stages 59
6.3.2 Environment in the ex-ante evaluation 61
6.3.3 Environment in the mid term evaluation 63
6.4 Looking ahead 65
7 The roles of Environmental Authorities 67
7.1 Introduction 67
7.2 EU legislation 67
7.2.1 Legacy of the programming period 1994 – 1999 67
7.2.2 The Structural Funds Regulations for 2000 – 2006 67
7.2.3 The Cohesion Fund Regulations 68
7.3 Member States’ legislation and practices 68
7.3.1 Diversity of Environmental Authorities structures 68
7.3.2 Responsibilities of Environmental Authorities in environmental integration 70
7.4 Shared responsibility with other bodies 73
7.5 Environmental networks for Structural Funds 75
7.5.1 Legislative basis 75
7.5.2 EU Networks 75
7.5.3 Networks in Member States 76
7.6 Financing the support of Environmental Authorities 78
7.7 Challenges 78
7.8 Looking ahead 79
8. Capacity building 80
8.1 Introduction 80
8.2 Need for capacity building 80
8.2.1. Lack of awareness and knowledge 80
8.2.3. Institutional set-up 81
8.2.4 Poor communication 81
8.3 Capacity building at programme level 81
8.3.1 Training 81
8.3.2 Guidance materials for programme development 82
8.3.3 Expert visits 82
8.4 Capacity building at project level 84
8.4.1 Training and workshops 84
8.4.2 Guidance materials 85
8.4.3 Mentoring 87
8.4.4 Award programmes 88
8.5 The importance of co-operation and networking in building capacity 89
8.6 Financing capacity building 90
8.7 Looking ahead 91
8.7.1 Raise awareness and knowledge 91
8.7.2 Bring in resources to support environmental integration 91
8.7.3 Improve the institutional set-up 92
8.7.4 Improve communication 93
9 Environment and Cohesion Policy in the next programming period 94
9.1 Introduction 94
9.2 Overview of the Regulations 94
9.3 Environment and the new Cohesion Policy 96
9.3.1 General provisions for environment and sustainable development 96
9.3.2 Support for specific types of environmental projects 96
9.3.3 Other opportunities for environmental integration 97
Annexes 98
Annex 1: Programming documents developed for the Structural Funds (Objective 1, 2 and 3) and the Cohesion Fund for the period 2000-06. 99
Annex 2: Environmental elements of programmes 102
Table 1: Environmental elements of Objective 1 and 2 programmes (2000-2006). 102
Table 2: Environmental elements of Objective 3 programmes (2000 – 2006). 105
Annex 3: Case studies of environmental appraisal within ex ante evaluation. 107
Annex 4: Selection criteria and their scores for the projects submitted within the Malta Single Programming Document 114
Annex 5: Guidance and supporting documents for environmental integration 115
General documents on sustainable development and environmental integration 115
Integration into specific sectors 116
Institutional organisation and programme management 118
Strategic environmental assessment 118
Monitoring and evaluation 119
NGOs recommendations for the next programming period and Documents on Public participation prepared by NGOs 122
Annex 6: Competition 2005: Good practice in Sustainable Development 123
1. Introduction
1.1 Goals of this report
This audit report examines how the environment has been integrated into development programmes across the Member States. The audit focused on the nine EU countries in the ‘Greening Regional Development Programmes’ (GRDP) Project, which is supported by the EU programme INTERREG IIIC.
The report looks at good practices and practical solutions, as well as challenges facing the nine countries in integrating the environment. Its information refers almost exclusively to programmes developed for the Structural Funds in the 2000-06 programming period.
The audit is the essential first phase of the GRDP project. It collects background information needed to give the project its focus and support its work during its lifetime. In particular, the audit should help in developing guidance for integrating the environment into development programmes in the next round of the Structural Funds (2007-13), as well as in other programmes.
What is the ‘Greening Regional Development Programmes’ project?The GRDP project is a network of 16 partners and about 20 associated organisations from eight different countries: Austria, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Malta, Poland, Spain and the United Kingdom.
The project aims to gather experience from Structural Funds and Cohesion Fund programmes as well as other regional economic development activities. It should improve understanding between the partner regions on integrating the environment and sustainable development into Structural Funds and other development programmes.
By sharing best practice and experience between partners, the GRDP partnership hopes to improve knowledge among its partners on environmental integration in the Cohesion and Structural Funds and other economic development programmes – both current and post-2006 – and to spread best practices in partner regions and beyond.
For more information about the project, visit www.grdp.org
1.2 The audit methodology
The audit report has been developed from information gathered from three sources: a partner questionnaire, consultant questionnaire and desktop research.
Partner questionnaire
A questionnaire was sent to all 36 GRDP partners in December 2004, and 23 completed questionnaires were returned. The aim was to gather the basic information on environmental integration in economic development programmes from the eight project partner countries.
Partners answered questions grouped under these headings:
· Who is doing what in mainstreaming environmental sustainability?
· What is the regional understanding of a ‘horizontal theme’?
· How has EU policy been interpreted and applied on the ground?
Consultant questionnaire
The goal of the consultant questionnaire was to:
· Describe case studies that could show how the environment was integrated into specific programmes. In total, 20 case studies were developed.
· Examine in detail four topics identified by the GRDP partnership as critical for integrating the environment into Structural and Cohesion Funds after 2006. The four themes are: partnership, strategic environmental assessment, networking of environmental actors and project appraisal.
Consultants were contracted in most GRDP project countries to collect information for the consultant questionnaire[1].
Desktop research
In parallel to collecting information for the partner and consultant questionnaires, desktop research was carried out from January to March 2005 on environmental integration in economic development programmes across all 25 EU countries.
This research: