C a s e S t u d y

Center for Sustainable Development

Sylvia Aleksieva, former Chair of the City Council

Executive Summary

The mission of the Agency for Sustainable Development (ASD) is to unite the efforts and interests of local community in improving social, economic and environmental conditions within the Municipality of Rousse and the region, as well as the standard of living of its citizens.

Situational Assessment/Problem Statement

Between 1980 and 1988, issues related to planning and systems for providing public services and development were of primary importance to the Municipality of Rousse. Development processes as well as legislation have changed radically last ten years in Bulgaria. The dynamic processes from last several years helped us to identify the necessity of strategic planning and its importance for Rousse and the region. Since 1992 a lot of countries work on Agenda 21, and since 1997 there are certain weak attempts at sustainable development in Bulgaria.

Practically, the concept of sustainable development includes issues related to strategic resources and their management. Considering all natural, economic, environmental and other peculiarities of the municipality and the region, we took the decision to unify community efforts to design a sustainable development strategy of the Municipality for three forecast periods. We approached the designing process with the understanding that we have to take integrated decisions on municipal and regional development issues in order to be able to implement the idea for sustainable development.

Project Description

Work on ASD started in October 1997. The following tasks have been accomplished so far:

A. Development of a Draft Project, that was discussed in the Standing Committees and later at a meeting of the Municipal Council in October 1997. The discussions:

1. put stress on the importance of the issue for the Municipality and the whole region

2. gave us the opportunity to define the scope of work of the ASD.

Our joint work with the partners from Duluth, the technical twin city of Rousse started with the visit of Mr. M. Conlan. During the visit of M. Conlan we put stress on defining the scope of work of the ASD and especially on addressing needs. In February and March, 1998, the work group developed a new ASD draft project which was further discussed at meetings of the Standing Committees. The project was reviewed at Municipal Council meeting in July 1998.

The goal of the Agency is to integrate and coordinate all community efforts in order to achieve mutual penetration of economic, social, urban and environmental dimensions of sustainable development.

Our opinion, supported by M. Conlan, is that ASD should not be a part of the municipal administration (except for the initial personnel appointments), in order to be able to function with an interdisciplinary approach towards problem analysis and overall planning, i.e. the Agency has to be a non-profit organization.

The following principles of sustainable development form the foundations of the project:

• strong economy;

• clean environment;

• social mechanisms;

• citizen participation.

The project employs and focuses on the following policy for sustainable development: balanced interaction between natural and artificial environment; partnership at all levels, review of local problems in regional and global aspect; balance between private and public interest; focus on historical and cultural continuity.

In order to achieve the goals and implement ASD's policy, the Municipality of Rousse and the Duluth experts agreed on following scope of work of the ASD:

1. Economic development - diversification of economic base and establishing public-private partnership relations;

2. Unemployment employment issues;

3. Renovation of public transport system - purchase of new buses and building supplementary physical infrastructure to support railroad, water and air transport;

4. Housing policy - construction of new housing and introduction of systematic plan for maintenance of existing housing facilities;

5. Infrastructure - water supply and sewage; heat distribution and streets; building high-tech communications infrastructure;

6. Healthcare - an immediate necessity of renewal of old medical equipment and long-term need of reforms in healthcare and service quality;

7. Education - need of system optimization;

8. Culture - as a benefactor of traditional culture, the Municipality should continue the renewal of existing cultural base and to work for its preservation, and, if necessary, to prepare sites of historical importance for adaptive usage;

9. Environmental protection - efforts for environmental protection, mainly focused on monitoring and regulating existing polluting production.

In order to achieve the overall objective "improving social, economic and environmental conditions within the Municipality of Rousse and the region, as well as the standard of living of its citizens" and to solve most important problems, ASD will focus its attention on the following areas:

- improvements in community management through introduction of innovative planning systems

- improvements in integrated provision of environmentally-friendly infrastructure

- establishing sustainable energy and transport systems

- improvements in human resources development.

Solution Overview

Planning for the following forecast periods has to be developed:

- Immediate actions for the next 3 to 5 years. Deadline: March - April, 1999.

- Development strategy for Rousse and the region in the next 10 to 15 years. Deadline: December, 1998.

- Development hypotheses for 25 to 35 years ahead. Deadline: June, 2000.

For the implementation of the above will be developed: concrete programs; evaluation criteria - economic, urban, environmental, etc.; comparison of goals and results; monitoring programs.

Mr. Conlan's report is evaluated as extremely in-depth, exact and correct in its recommendations and conclusions. In essence, it is a project for the immediate actions to be taken within the next 3 to 5 years, also including strategic goals. The proposal "Program Initiative that consists of four areas: economic, geographic and historical tourism, transport communications center, alternative energy proofs that the specific peculiarities of the region have been identified successfully.

Conclusion

The ASD of Rousse and the region is an association of organizations with humanitarian and economic goals towards sustainable development of civic society as a whole and of its separate dimensions. The goal is to improve social, economic and environmental quality of communities, working conditions and living standard, by means of integrated decision-making and balanced interaction between natural and artificial environment.

At this stage, effect can be defined in two directions:

1. Concept - clear principles, defined major areas, concrete actions taken in the following areas: economic development and establishing an energy holding, looking for funding sources.

2. The technical twinning between Rousse and Duluth is in essence an implementation of Agenda '21.