It goes without saying that cooperation is good and cooperation
in international elations in particular, sometimes can be the key to success.
An important feature of international cooperation is the absence of a central
international regulator. Hence, an agreement should be voluntary and have
an intrinsic means of maintaining cooperation.
Transboundary cooperation is essential in dealing with the environmental
problems and issues in general. Not only are nation-states unable to insulate
themselves from the effects of these problems, but they are also incapable
of resolving them without active response to these problems from the greater
part of the international community.
Transboundary cooperation in the region can be traced back to 1956 when
the Republic of Albania and the Socialistic Federal Republic of Yugoslavia
have signed the Agreement on Management of Waters under which in 1972 was
that established the so called joint Water Management Committee. Soon after
its establishment, however, the committee has been dormant for long time
and hasn’t been reconstituted after the independence of Republic of Macedonia.
After the political changes in Albania and Macedonia in the early 1990s created
the general enabling environment, the first initiative for restoring the cooperation
between the two countries for this region came from the World Bank in 1994
concerning the Lake Ohrid. Soon after followed the first concrete step: the
preparation of the Feasibility Study prepared by Ernst Basler and Partners
in cooperation with EAWAG and local consultants from Albania and Macedonia.
The Feasibility Study shaped the main developments concerning the transboundary
cooperation concerning the Lake Ohrid in the following years. It gave the
way to two important events at that time: the Donor’s Conference held in
October 1996 in Ohrid and the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding
of the Lake Ohrid Conservation Project, in November 1996 in Ohrid. The first
confirmed the role of the international community as an important actor in
the region; the later established the Lake Ohrid Management Board, an Albanian/Macedonian
body first of the kind for the two countries. The role of the World Bank,
the Swiss Government, and later the German KfW in this process cannot be
overemphasized.
In the follow up period, the LOMB was actively involved in the preparation
of the Lake Ohrid Conservation Project, together with the experts of the World
Bank but also the relevant scientific institutions, NGOs and individual experts.
Apart from that the LOMB addressed the issue of the wastewaters from Pogradec
and its surrounding area. It seemed that the LOMB, at its meeting in Ohrid
in February 1999 achieved consensus over the technological solution for the
wastewater treatment plant, nevertheless, the issue remained opened and has
been later revisited. My impression is that at present, there is a tacit
disagreement over this issue among the LOMB members. Though the issue is
controversial and complex in its own way it is indicative of the capacity
of the LOMB to deal with issues going beyond the mere supervision of the implementation
of the LOCP. I would like to support this statement with another example,
the case of the famous Ohrid trout. While the LOMB was aware of the need
for an immediate action as suggested by the data from the MTF, it failed
to tackle this issue despite of the discussion at several of its meetings
and the efforts made through its task forces (ISTF and the MTF). As the limitations
of the current organizational and legal arrangement underpinning the work
of the LOMB became increasingly apparent, the World Bank proposed to the LOMB
to priority actions: (i) strengthening of the legal status of the LOMB; and
(ii) correction of the under-representation of other state and local agencies
with jurisdictional powers related to the management of the Lake's watershed,
e.g. the Macedonian Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Water Management.
For that purpose, in the past 14 months or so, the ministries responsible
for the implementation of the LOCP worked on the development of an international
treaty for the Lake Ohrid watershed At the last meeting of the LOMB in October
2003, the text of the treaty has been finalized and the next stage would
be to win a support within the governments in each of the countries and subsequently
present the document for ratification before the parliaments of Albania and
Macedonia and later by Greece.
Since the very beginning of the process, the World Bank insisted on a strong
involvement of the official scientific institutions in the countries in both
the design and the implementation of the LOCP. In this respect, the establishment
of a joint monitoring program for the Lake Ohrid was one of the main strategic
goals. Though several institutions in both countries were considered as important
partners, ultimately the joint Monitoring Task Force comprised only the lead
scientists of the Hydrometeorological Institute in Tirana and the Hydrobiological
Institute in Ohrid in Macedonia. Since the official start of the LOCP in
1998 the experts of the MTF in Albania and Macedonia separately prepared two
annual technical reports. It was only in 2003, and following a considerable
assistance from external international experts (through the World Bank), that
the MTF produced the first joint report, the State of the Environment Report
for the Lake Ohrid Watershed. The difficulties in the delivery of this document
clearly revealed the negative consequences of the exclusion of other institutions
and scientists working in disciplines other than limnology and chemistry.
Nevertheless, the delivery of the SoER of the LOW is an important milestone
for the transboundary management of the Lake Ohrid and its watershed. Apart
from the value of its content, the process of the preparation provided both
the scientists and the managers a valuable experience. However, before they
capitalize on this experience, several important issues remain to be solved.
The first is the adoption of a formal and official Joint Monitoring Protocol
of the MTF and addressing the related issue of the quality insurance. Another
important issue is the sustainability of the monitoring program. One of the
ways to look for a solution would be the incorporation of the LOMP in the
national monitoring program of surface water bodies. In addition, I believe
that there was a common misconception of the role of the LOMP in the past.
While most of the parties involved in the project, including the World Bank
and the very members of the MTF, thought of the MTF as of an acting technical
committee for the LOMB, by its organizational design and expert capacity
it was not and cannot be so. The case of the wastewater treatment plant in
Pogradec was a typical example of lack of a balanced view from different scientific
disciplines.
Besides the science, the non-governmental sector was considered as an important
stakeholder in the transboundary environmental management of Lake Ohrid. In
principle, the LOCP was instrumental in the development of the transboundary
cooperation between the NGOs from in Macedonia and Albania. Similar to the
case of the transboundary cooperation of scientists, the international actors
played an important role. In the case of the NGOs, the Regional Environmental
Center for Central and Easter Europe from Budapest and its local offices in
Tirana and Skopje had the role of facilitator of the transboundary cooperation
between the NGOs. The idea was to use the organization’s structure, through
the national branches of REC as a bridge in helping the NGOs in the region
in developing stronger links among themselves. The approach involved two strategies:
(i) to establish the so called “Green Centers” in Ohrid, Struga and Pogradec
to serve as focal points and the main nodes of the transboundary cooperation
in the NGO sector; and (ii) to foster transboundary cooperation of NGOs through
financing of joint projects. In reality, the main effort of REC was focused
on the development and capacity building of the NGOs in the two countries;
the majority of the projects were among NGOs from the same country and only
few among the NGOs across the border – the most successful being the bike
tour around the lake. The NGOs selected to grow into strong “Green Centers”
were not able to meet the expectations and much of the current cooperation
among the NGOs across the border originates elsewhere. Though the NGOs from
Albania and Macedonia have their representative in the LOMB their participation
in its activities was very moderate. Also, they missed the opportunity to
use their position in the LOMB to facilitate the cooperation between the
NGOs from the both sides of the border. This is due not only to the lack
of legitimacy among their constituencies and the divisions within the NGO
sector, but also because of the general lack of capacity among the local
NGOs to play an active role in an international setting. Thus, although there
might be different ways to mitigate the current weak role of the NGOs in
the LOMB, inviting a representative of a renowned international NGO in the
work of the LOMB may be useful in any combination.
On the other hand, a strong impetus to the transboundary cooperation of
the NGOs in the region was provided from outside the LOCP and the “Green
Centers”. Several projects have received substantial financing, such as the
project Public Participation in Transboundary Water Management (app. 40.000
USD) implemented by ALLCOOP – Macedonia, ALLCOOP – Albania, Tourism and Environment,
Albania and CTC Peipsi, Estonia through grants from the Open Society Institute
(New York) and the Alavida, UK. The project was implemented through several
phases over 2 years and culminated with the production of the State of the
Environment Report for River Cherava – the only transboundary river in the
region. More recently, the GTZ financed a comprehensive program for further
development of the transboundary cooperation in environmental matters through
small grants administered through the Coordination Committee of the Prespa
Park.
Parallel to the activities centered on the Lake Ohrid, a separate and different
process was initiated concerning the Prespa Lakes, on the other side of the
Galicica Mountain. The efforts to put the Prespa region on the agenda of the
national and international policy-makers can be traced back to 1997 and the
international symposium entitled Towards Integrated Conservation and Sustainable
Development of Transboundary Macro and Micro Prespa Lakes, held in Korcha.
Though different from LOCP in that the main actors were the scientists having
research interests in the area, the common feature is the important role
of international actors. In a similar manner, the scientific networks, working
through the international NGOs and other international organizations, but
mainly the Greek NGO Society for the Protection of Prespa, gradually formed
an advocacy group for the Prespa region. The major breakthrough was the Declaration
on the Creation of the Prespa Park and the Environmental Protection and Sustainable
Development of the Prespa Lakes and their Surroundings signed by the Prime
Ministers of Albania, Greece and Macedonia in February 2000. This event was
paralleled by another important conference, the international symposium Sustainable
Development of Prespa Region held in June 2000, in Prespa, in Oteshevo, Macedonia.
Following on the Declaration, in October 2000 in Tirana, Albania, officials
from Albania, Greece and Macedonia held the first working meeting on the establishment
of the Prespa Park. At the meeting the parties established a Co-ordination
Committee (CC) comprising 9 members; each country appoints three members
to represent the responsible government authority, the local government and
the NGO sector. A representative of the Convention on Wetlands – MedWet also
fully participate in the work of the Committee, as an ex officio observer,
but does not have the right to vote. Differently from the case of the LOMB,
the PPCC At the first meeting in January 2001, the PPCC adopted operational
agreements and a work plan and established a trilateral secretariat comprising
three persons, selected from the NGOs represented in the PPCC. Over the past
three years the work of the PPCC and the Secretariat was focused on two major
issues. The first was related to the preparation of the preparation of a
proposal for a GEF project submitted through the UNDP (to be officially launched
in two weeks). The other major task was the preparation of the Strategic Action
Plan for the Prespa Park; the first draft has been prepared and in 2002 presented
to the public in order to collect comments.
The Feasibility Study for the LOCP argued for the need for cooperation at
the scale of Lake Ohrid Watershed, that includes the Prespa region. However,
until very recently no genuine attempts, in any form, were made to involve
Greece in the LOCP, despite the well-known fact that part of the Lake Ohrid
watershed is shared by Greece. On the other hand, the draft SAP for the PP
in the analysis of the alternative formal frameworks for transboundary management
of Prespa basin, considered the possibility for designating a biosphere reserve
including both the Lake Ohrid basin and the Prespa basin. Nevertheless, is
strongly argues for establishment foe a separate institutional arrangements
for the Prespa basin alone. Though there is an awareness of the need for a
management approach at the level of the Region of Lake Ohrid and the Prespa
Lakes on both sides, the LOCP and the PP, there has been no official cooperation,
and even a communication between the two processes yet.
In time, other platforms for the development for the transboundary cooperation
were proposed and are beginning to win ever-growing support, particularly
from the local governments. The most notable example is the initiative to
establish an EuroRegion at the Lake Ohrid and the Prespa Lakes which in fact
goes beyond the physical boundaries of the region of Lake Ohrid and the Prespa
Lakes. After numerous preparatory meetings and conferences, the first project
towards the establishment of the institutional framework for the Prespa-Ohrid
EuroRregion is to be launched this month.
Also, there were several small-scale projects for fostering the transboundary
cooperation in the economy sector; examples are the preparation of a directory
of businesses in Ohrid, Pogradec and Korca and the preparation of a single
tourist guide for the region of Lake Ohrid and the Prespa Lakes, including
Greece.
