Project considered by the Preparation and Assessment Committee (PAC) on 16/11/04 and approved by the Approval Board (AB) on 17/11/04 as the CORE Programme Topical Project

General Framework of the Topical Project (TP)

Context

The situations in the four Districts concerned by CORE program are diverse and complex putting a wide range of public and private actors in relation, from the local to the international level. These territories are characterised by the presence of long term and diffuse radioactive contamination which concentrate in all environments of the territories, and a socio-economics situation mainly based on rural activities.

The Stolyn District is characterised by the Polesie area and by the fact that a part of the local population lost their traditional spheres of activity and as a result, unemployment and social tense has grown up.

This proposal aims at getting responses to the need of the rural population and the villages concerned:

• Reduce radioactive contamination nutrition,
• Improve the family income,
• Rehabilitate sustainable local economic activities (e.g. pottery in Gorodnaya, etc.),
• Open to the outside world the villages that leave an enclosing situation due to their remoteness to the economic and social centre,
• Support the private and public actors to be in position of co-actors of the sustainable development of their territory

Purpose of the TP

In appreciation of the fact that one cannot choose instead of the population to still living in these contaminated territory or not, and that there is a need for a new sustainable rehabilitation and development-based approach integrating health, economic and social development, environment, food, education and culture to address the actual and long-term needs of the affected populations and the civil society, we propose a five year project to set up a revitalisation process of local economic activities, through concrete actions on: eco-hospitality, handicraft, pottery, weaving, and others to be identified.

Then, the project aims at supporting a setting up of a strategic process for the implementation of the conditions and means for the autonomous management and sustainable economic development of the rural populations in the Stolyn district, especially to:

• Improve the economic living conditions,
• Improve the population capacity to choose better quality food stuff, in terms of radioactive concentration, variety, etc
• Strengthening the capacities of actors concerned to improve living conditions of the rural population, through support of villages` initiatives and the strengthening of their skills,
• Support the private and public actors to be co-define and co-implement project for the economic development of their territories, activities such as eco-hospitality, pottery, etc.

To do this, we propose to set up a strategic process, based on the public and private actors from the local, national and international level, considered as the experts of the situation and the problem, to facilitate the co-identification, the co-elaboration and the co-implementation of sustainable local economic initiatives. Then, the specific objectives of this TP:

• Place the inhabitants as active actors of the rehabilitation of their economic living conditions,
• Mobilise the assets of the territory (natural, economical, structural cultural:) at the inhabitants of the villages disposal for the rehabilitation of the economic living conditions,
• Secure the projects and the activities with adapted procedures and quality contracts, at local, national and international level, especially concerning the radioactive contamination,
• Establish and make secure and a sustainable progress of the rehabilitation of the economic living conditions of the rural population process

Local, national and international partners of the Topical Project

Local partners: Private actors from the villages, chairman of local rural Soviet, representative of Distr./ executive committee, Chairman of District,

National Partners: Centre for Coordination of Cooperation with UNESCO and other International Organisations (National Academy of Sciences of Belarus), State forestry enterprise "Stolin leskhoz", International State Ecological University by A. Sakharov

International Partners: ISP/ INA PG, International Association (under construction), Environment observatory of the University of Picardie; Mrs. L. CALLENS, Director of the Forum des Marais Atlantique, Mrs. C. Gallien, Director of a regional public body to support initiatives in the field of local economic and social development, European partnership committee

In order to improve the quality and the sustainability of this project, we the partners of the CORE-Agri (e.g. technician specialised on economic issues from the "Centre for rural Development"), CORE-radiology, CORE-health and CORE-education and memory projects will be associated to this process.

Activities:

The following directions of activities are needed

1. Identification of projects and research of conditions and means of its feasibility
2. Support to the conception, the implementation and the financing of the projects
3. Follow-up of the projects and experiences exchanges
4. Evaluation and adaptation of the process and the actions associated
5. Methodological and strategic support.

As part of this strategic process an international association composed of national and international partners, who has strong competence in such issues, will be developed. This association will be able to drive the implementation of the results of the project and to disseminate such a process elsewhere, in Belarus and in other part of the world.

Success criteria of the TP: for the 5 years of the project

Radiological criteria: Improvement of the radiological conditions

Reduce radioactive contamination nutrition; the population capacity to choose better quality food stuff, in terms of radioactive concentration, variety, etc.; development of means (geo-strategic instruments, GIS, etc.) to follow-up the evolution of contamination in the environments in order to better manage the quality of the territories

Economic criteria: Improve the economic living conditions

Improvement of income of the rural population of the villages and impact at the local level (the impact on the local economy); development of new working place (employment); open to the outside world the villages that leave an enclosing situation due to their remoteness to the economic and social centre

Criteria of sustainability:

Long term financial and economical viability of the project and the structures: Elaboration of a quality contract: (a protocol, kind of specification register) at local, national and international level, that do allow the market access of the local products and services supply; Share of self-financing of the activities, capacity of self-management of the project identified and implemented by the village, development of habits of meeting and working together with all the public and private actors of the territories in order to reinforce their ability to shoulder together the future economic evolution of their territories where they live.

Inter and intra-generation conditions: the setting up of strategic intervention model and standard strategic procedures that will be reproducible elsewhere. The under construction international Association will be the mean through which this multiplier effect will be effective. Development of references and spreading (i.e. transfer of knowledge), capacity of the local population to self-managed local projects and involved other part of the population.

Dynamic involvement criteria: Number of participants to the working-groups and the quality of the local project that will be elaborated, Capacity of these local project to be validate by CORE bodies, Capacity of the local projects and to the working-groups to attract new finances sources,

Coordination and integration of the TP to the CORE Programme

The coordination will be assumed by the Belarus and French Coordinator of the project.

Within this TP, ISP/INA P-G is engaged as strategic facilitator in order to set up an international partnership for the realisation of this 5 years project. As far as the PA: economic and social development in the rural area is concerned, ISP/ INAPG who is specialized in the "Management of the living and patrimonial Strategies" play a role of coordinator/ integrator with other PA and TP of CORE program and is already in charge of the methodological and strategic support of the CORE-Agri actions. The, ISP/ INAPG will have this role within the present TP.

The coordination functions will be assumed through permanent contact with the local actors through regular mission on the ground to follow-up the evolution of the situations and the problems, and with the others national and international partners of the other TP and priority area (PA), especially within the European partnership Committee. In medium/ long term, this TP will be reinforced by the setting up an international Association composed of national and international partners, who has strong competence in such issues, will be developed.

Main activities provisioned throughout the CORE Programme duration

Activity 1. Identification of projects and research of conditions and means of its feasibility

In the first step of the TP, we will intervene in 4 villages of the Stolyn district. Then to initiate the activities, the first actions to be undertaken is focused on the identification of project, project-holders and conditions and means for its feasibility.

Objectives:

• Identify actors who are potential project-holders,
• Design with them operational projects,
• Enrich the conception of the project and its implementation through co-expertise process with the other actors facilitate by the coordinator of the TP and the district authorities.

Main tasks:

1. Mobilisation of groups of actors, at villages, inter-villages and Polesie area level to identify project proposal and potential project-holders.

• Meeting in each villages in order to mobilise groups of actors and the potential project-holders, and led a first common reflection about local economic projects
• Training seminar to initiate the elaboration of the projects:
  • at village level: for the individual project (e.g. pottery in Gorodnaya)
  • at inter-village level: by theme (i.e. identification of similar project in several villages)
  • at the district level: for the actors who are specifically interested by the Polesie region

2. Constitution of international group (IG) to assist and enrich the co-conception and the co-evaluation of the projects

• Mobilisation of local, national and international actors: a co-evaluation of the local potentialities and constraints of the territory, especially the natural resources and environments.
• Identification and enhancement of the relevant information about the potentialities that could be enhance within the projects and the constraints that should be taken into account. That will also raised new opportunities.
  • Constitution of groups for co-expertise
  • If needed, Patrimonial Audit to identify new opportunities and constraints, regarding the integration of the Polesie within the territory.

3. Identification of project-holders and operational projects at villages, inter-villages and Polesie level, and research of the conditions and means to implement them (Training seminar)

4. Co-elaboration of operational projects with all the actors concerned (Training seminar)

5. Qualification of the projects: prepare and improve with the project-holders, the local authorities and the international group (IG) the overall quality of the project to get responses to all the dimensions at stakes for the rehabilitation of the economic living conditions of the population on the contaminated territory of Stolyn District (economic, social, health, radiological:)

• Training seminar
• Patrimonial Audit: Implement the co-construction, with local, national and international actors concerned, of a quality contract for each operational project field (eco-hospitality, pottery:.).

Expected results:

• Development of sustainable operational projects for the revitalisation of the local economic activities corresponding to the requirement of all the actors concerned,
• Emergence of project-holders able to implement operational projects,
• Emergence of villages and private and public actors able to support an economic development process at the district level,
• Mobilised effectively the assets of the territory at the inhabitants and their projects disposal
• Development of an international recognition (visibility)

Activity 2. Support to the conception, implementation and financing of the projects

It will be necessary to facilitate the implementation of the projects through methodological, technical, financial, administrative support

Objective: Implementation of the operational project and develop the favourable conditions for its viability and its sustainable management.

Main tasks:

• Research and setting up of partnerships able to implement, follow-up and evaluate the projects.
• Identify and mobilised the financing necessary to implement the operational project,
• Implement the operational project and accompaniments
• Financing of the operational project
• Development of technical and animation support

Expected results:

• Implementation of the operational project and development of conditions and means to manage it.
• Improvement of the living economic conditions of the rural population

Activity 3. Follow-up of the projects and experiences exchanges

Objective:

• Development of conditions and means for the following-up and the evaluation of the operational project and of the quality of its implementation by the participants (internal evaluation)
• Improvement of competencies and skills of the local actors,
• Improvement of the capacity of the local populations and authorities to better manage the quality of their territory, especially regarding the radioactive contamination.

Main tasks:

• Training seminar with all the participants for the following-up and the co-evaluation of the projects
• Training of local actors (Belarus students, etc.) to the patrimonial strategies and to the procedures of patrimonial audit (i.e. patrimonial audit for the quality contract)
• Visit and exchanges: inter-villages, in France, etc. in order to create a wider dynamic, to exchange experiences, and raised new opportunities
• Identification of the existing and those to be developed, tools and procedures adapted to the need of the population and to the implementation of the operational project for the management of the quality of the territory that should be useful for the implementation of the operational project (GIS, guides, procedures, etc.)

Expected results:

• Place the participants in positioning to self-manage the projects and the actions associated
• Report on the evolution of the project
• Development and reference on strategic intervention model and standard strategic procedures
• Training of one or more student to the patrimonial strategies and audit procedures
• Identification of geo-strategic instrument adapted to the need of the local actors to manage the quality of their territory (existing and to be developed)

Activity 4. Evaluation and adaptation of the process and the actions associated

Objective:

• Follow-up the work-progress (external evaluation)
• Adaptation to the evolution of the situation, the problem and the project
• Secure and perpetuate the process of the rehabilitation of the economic living conditions of the inhabitants of the villages in the long run

Main tasks:

• Annual and mid-term report on the evolution work-progress
• Training seminar to facilitate by the coordinators and the local Authorities and with the expertise of the international group (IG) to co-evaluate the work-progress and the quality of the functioning of the partnership. And if need to adapt the project to the evolution.
• Realisation of new activities if needed for the development of new operational project identified by the actors concerned.

Results:

• Improve the capacity of the private and public actors of the District to self-drive the rehabilitation process of the economic living conditions
• Identification of strategic intervention model and standard strategic procedures

Activity 5. Methodological and strategic support

The objectives of the Activity 5 are the methodological and strategic support to the realization and the follow-up of the activities of this TP between all the partners, from local to international level. But also for the integration of this TP within the other ongoing TP of this PA and with the other PA of CORE program.

This methodological and strategic support will also include tasks related to the mobilization of new other partners and skills, at local, national and international level.

This activity will be specifically led by ISP/INA PG, in close links with the International Association.

More over, the methodological and strategic support will aimed at raising strategic intervention model and standard strategic procedures which will be enhanced by the International Association and which could be used elsewhere.

Results expected at the end of the 5 years project:

• Operational projects with concretes results
• Project-holders able to implement and adapt the projects
• Villages which are in a reinforcement of the rehabilitation of their living conditions process
• Mobilised effectively local and national assets, especially of the Polesie, to the villages disposal
• Develop an effective capacity of the district to steer the rehabilitation of the economic living conditions process
• Develop an international recognition (visibility) of the territory, the projects and the actions

Budget (estimation)

* 80% of the funds identified: A preliminary proposal for TACIS Chernobyl rehabilitation program (EuropeAid/120344/C/G/BY), 01 November 2004.

Times-schedule

All Rights Reserved, CORE, 2004