Strategic Moves - Regional Environmental Center for Central and ...

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investments. The capacity of the inspectorates is weak and a culture of compliance is lacking; the link between the inspectorates and the line ministries is not always strong and the connection between the inspectorates and the prosecution is weak. • The current capacity of environmental ministries may turn out to be insufficient for the administration of all future environmental requirements. However, there is pressure from ministries of finance to avoid an increase in staff numbers. Obstacles to environmental infrastructure financing — municipal level Political Local governments in SEE often suffer as a result of the deficiencies of the national political system. In many cases the mayor represents a party that is not in power, thus his or her leverage to attract funding and implement environmental investment projects is limited. Conversely, those municipalities close to the governing party may receive extra funding. Local governments also struggle with a multitude of competing funding priorities such as road and transport infrastructure, health, education etc. In many cases, these investments are more visible and tangible than environmental investments (with the exception of water supply, waste collection and the prevention of illegal dumping), thus local politicians tend to give them priority. This is a particular problem in the case of wastewater projects, where the population and elected leaders are able to refer to traditional methods of household wastewater disposal, the negative environmental impacts of which are not immediately visible (REC, 2005). Economic/financial Devolvement of responsibility without adequate resources As a general rule, following the process of decentralisation there is a serious mismatch between the obligations of the municipalities and their financial capacities to manage these obligations. This is particularly true for waste and water management. Municipal budgets are almost always insufficient to cover investments in environmental infrastructure, and in most cases municipalities are prevented by legal, political and capacity-related obstacles from raising sufficient resources to carry out the investments needed in order to fulfil their obligations in these sectors. Very often local governments’ hands are tied — they are legally prevented from taking on significant debts (by debt service ratio laws), and from adjusting the amount and type of charges imposed on users of infrastructure or penalties for non-payment (by state controls on tariffs). They often face political constraints in the reorganisation of utilities to better manage and collect fees to cover the operation and maintenance of their infrastructure. However, with the implementation of the EU acquis, much of this is changing for the better in the region. C H A P T E R 3 C H A L L E N G E S T O E N V I R O N M E N TA L F I N A N C I N G I N S E E S T R AT E G I C M O V E S 63
64 C H A P T E R 3 C H A L L E N G E S T O E N V I R O N M E N TA L F I N A N C I N G I N S E E TABLE 2: Key challenges and constraints at municipal level TYPE CONSTRAINTS DESCRIPTION ADDRESSED IN GREATER DETAIL IN Political Political affiliation Mayors from the ruling party are favoured at the expense of mayors from opposition parties Lack of political will Results from the election cycle and the need to raise tariffs and lay people off Chapter 4 Competing priorities Budgets are limited and politicians sometimes prefer the more tangible projects Economic/ Insufficient municipal Budgetary allocations for Chapter 3 financial budget (revenue and municipalities are generally lower expenditure mismatch) than the funds needed to achieve compliance with legal investment Over-reliance on grants Fostering a grant-dependent culture prevents local governments from implementing other reforms Economies of scale Organisational difficulties are experienced in setting up regional associations (e.g. for waste management) Institutional Decentralisation (also has Some important environmental Chapter 3 legal aspects) functions have been devolved to local governments, whose capacities remain weak Local government Local governments have increased Chapter 3 staff capacity environmental responsibilities with no or few members of staff Unreformed water Results in lack of utility Chapter 2 and waste utilities independence, fragmented water utilities, and the cross-subsidising of costs from stronger to weaker departments Cooperation between Modern waste management is Chapter 2 waste utilities carried out at regional level and cooperation is needed between utilities Cooperation with Lack of regular consultations Chapter 3 national authorities between national and local authorities Planning Lack of regional waste and water management plans Environment as a Other issues such as road relatively low priority infrastructure and social services may have a higher relative priority than environment, especially waste management S T R AT E G I C M O V E S
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The Priority Environmental Investme
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About the REC The Regional Environm
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4 C O N T E N T S Chapter 3 Challen
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6 A B B R E V I AT I O N S S T R AT
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8 A B B R E V I AT I O N S S T R AT
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10 S T R AT E G I C M O V E S
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THE REGIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL CENTER F
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