Impact/Purpose:

The overall purpose of this project is to strengthen environmental management capacity of the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources in the areas of economic analysis, environmental risk assessment, and environmental finance. It will assist the Ukrainian government to set more effective risk-based priorities, increase the efficiency and performance, and better meet its international environmental obligations.

Description:

Ukraine, when part of the former Soviet Union, was responsible for about 25% of its overall industrial production. This aging industrial infrastructure continues to emit enormous volumes of air and water pollution and wastes. Ukraine, according to UNDP, is ranked 11th in the world for emissions of greenhouse gases. Its own State of the Environment Report shows significant problems with criteria air pollutants. The country report from the Meteorological Synthesizing Center East (of the UNECE LRTAP) shows significant emissions of persistent organic pollutants and heavy metals. Thus there are numerous emissions that have been associated with developmental effects, chronic long-term health effects, and cancer. Ukraine also has been identified as a major source of transboundary air pollution for the eastern Mediterranean region. Ukraine's environment ministry is not currently well positioned to strategically target high priority emissions and clearly lacks the resources to address all these problems at once.

For these reasons the US Environmental Protection Agency has set up a partnership with Ukraine's Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources to strengthen its capacity to set environmental priorities through the use of comparative environmental risk assessment and economic analysis. To pay for increased environmental protection the project is also addressing improvements in the efficiency and effectiveness of the use of its National Environmental Protection Fund. Finally the project will encourage steps that will eventually lead to leveraging of the financial resources of the private sector for environmental protection.

The project consists of a series of workshops with Ukrainian Ministry officials in comparative risk assessment of air pollutant emissions in several heavily industrialized oblasts; cost-benefit and cost-effectiveness analysis; and environmental finance. The participating officials all have responsibilities in these areas and the emphasis will be to learn to carry out these analyses on their own data. At the end of the project it is expected that the use of the National Environmental Protection fund and the regional level oblast environmental protection funds will begin to target the highest health and environmental risk emissions.

Record Details: