Environmental capacity building
The goal of capacity building is to increase government capacity through staff training and coaching, these are trained in management, research, planning, monitoring, evaluation, legal aspects and enforcement. Organizational and technical skills need to be strengthened. New techniques, technologies, and insights are transferred.
Different aspects are to be taken into consideration: cultural backgrounds, recent political developments, social status, role of the sexes in society, etc. This makes capacity to a difficult and unpredictable task. In any case, it should be avoided to force certain "fixed" procedures upon the recipient. Instead, current abilities need to be reinforced and an approximation towards the 'desired' situation needs to be plotted based on the available (human) resources and the absorption capacity of the beneficiary.
We have gained particular experience in this field in:
- Palestine
- Serbia
- Kosovo
Example:
The Palestinian National Authority has appointed the Environmental Quality Agency (EQA) as the responsible institute for environmental protection in the Palestinian Territories (Gaza and the West Bank)
The Palestinian Ministry of Environment and the Environmental Quality Agency EQA were supported in the development of the first National Environmental Action Programme. Our contribution focused around environmental monitoring and policy evaluation. Thus the focus was on completing the first iteration of the environmental policy cycle in Palestine.
After an introduction to environmental measurement, monitoriong, and evaluation, we analyzed existing Palestinian environmental statistics to assess their suitability as a basis for policy indicators. The selected indicators were based on the Palestinian Environmental Strategy (PES). Information gaps were identified and the necessary actions to complete missing information were formulated and incorporated into the action program.
It was decided to work on the basis of the European DPSIR model. Various studies have been initialized within this framework. Furthermore, procedures and techniques for evaluation were discussed and developed, tailored to the Palestinian situation.