Capacity Building Project

Capacity Building project - Extended project team © Propark Foundation for Protected Areas

Capacity Building Plans for Efficient Protected Area Management in Eastern Europe”, is a project commissioned by German Federal Agency for Nature Conservation (BfN), implemented by ProPark Foundation for Protected Areas from Romania. It is aiming to provide technical support for strengthening the capacity development field in Eastern Europe, by initiating and coordinating the development of national and regional plans for capacity building.

Project duration: October 2012 – November 2015

Goal: to contribute to improved management of Protected Areas in Eastern Europe by supporting comprehensive training programmes targeted to protected area managers and key stakeholders

The project was implemented in 2 stages:

Training needs assessments was carried out in 23 countries, as follows:

a) A detailed assessment in 9 countries – reflecting both managers’ and staff’s opinion about the professional development needs of their Protected Area management teams or relevant staff in Croatia, Estonia, Georgia, Latvia, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia and Ukraine.

b) A general assessment in 14 countries – based on managers’ opinion only, based on one general questionnaire, covering a representative sample of the whole PA administration bodies / managers in the country. Such an assessment was conducted in: Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Kosovo, Lithuania, FYR Macedonia, Republic of Moldova, Montenegro, Poland, Turkey and Hungary.

Planning processes were initiated and carried out, including some activities to support the future implementation of the plans:

a) 2 national capacity building plans (for Croatia and Georgia) and a regional plan (for Romania and Moldova) are being developed, taking into consideration the specific context, the current status and the training needs of the target countries;

b) Training events will be organized for future trainers from Eastern Europe within 2 training sessions. Details will be provided soon.

c) The online platform was developed to link and coordinate the existing initiatives within the region and to facilitate the exchange of information.

The project is being implemented with the valuable support of the Project Advisory Committee, gathering 8 individual experts and representatives of European organizations and institutions that are currently involved and interested in capacity building activities for protected areas: Carol Ritchie from EUROPARC Federation, Hanns Kirchmeir from E.C.O. – Institut für Ökologie – Klagenfurt, Austria, Naïk Faucon from ATEN – Atelier Technique des Espaces Naturels – France, Sebastian Schmidt from Michael Succow Foundation in Germany, Rolands Auzins from Nature Conservation Agency in Latvia, Jan Kadlecick from State Conservation Agency of the Slovak Republic, Irina Zupan from State Institute for Nature Protection in Croatia, Tamar Pataridze from the Agency for Protected Areas in Georgia.