Danish Environmental Assistance and Environmental Conventions
4. Closer cooperation between technical divisions, environmental assistance administrations and research institutions
Close links must be ensured between bilateral environmental assistance and the specific fulfilment of the obligations stated in conventions, including the preceding international environmental negotiations. This involves strengthening co-operation between the divisions of the ministry working with bilateral environmental assistance and those that monitor the implementation of international conventions and recommendations on behalf of Denmark.
The ministry’s research institutions play a distinct role in the international work. In many cases they are responsible for the technical implementation of the Danish commitments to conventions and the discussions in international professional fora associated with the work on international conventions. The experience they have gathered on procedures and systems for monitoring and data processing is of great significance both for conventions and environmental assistance work.
First, the tools and routines must be introduced into work procedures to ensure the ongoing exchange of information between ministry staff. This creates a climate of cooperation in which the ministry’s criterion for success, and therefore the criterion for its management and employees, is the fruitful and creative development of the instruments. These instruments promote the desired synergy effect, create political results for implementing international environmental conventions and stimulate specific results from bilateral cooperation work that, through the EPSF, has high political priority in Denmark.
Some of the guidelines for better and closer coordination between the relevant units and ministry staff are described below.
A general orientation about the meeting and mission activities of the environmental assistance divisions can be obtained through the inset in the magazine MiljøDanmark, called "Environmental Assistance", the DANCED Newsletter, and the annual reports of the environmental assistance programmes. But this is insufficient for the daily work of strengthening interaction between work on the conventions and environmental assistance. The DEA publication EnergiNyt gives similar updates on tangible measures being taken on the energy front. Informal networks between staff working on the conventions and those involved in the administration of environmental assistance programmes must be set up to encourage the exchange of information, experience and news.
The specialised knowledge of staff members working on conventions ought also to be included in e.g. project formulation, assessment and evaluations to the extent that resources permit. Conversely, the technical divisions and institutions should be informed about relevant projects or other activities that support the implementation of particular conventions in the partner country concerned. There can also be political signals or changes in direction in cooperation with a partner country that would comprise useful information for the environmental assistance staff worker concerned.
The environmental assistance divisions will be kept informed of international meetings through the "international calendar" which will routinely be prepared by the ministry’s department and is accessible at: www.mem.dk/international. More direct orientation and updating will be needed from the technical divisions and institutions in connection with missions or visiting delegations, for example.
The technical divisions will require updated lists of convention-related projects in connection with Danish reporting to the convention secretariats and will receive, on request, contributions towards a description of the year’s environmental assistance cooperation that is relevant to conventions from the environmental assistance divisions.
The environmental assistance divisions, including staff at the embassies, are responsible for taking the initiative for preparing and coordinating:
 | That the political message in the publication concerned is communicated in an English-language version that can be used in a convention and project context, as the communicator of the importance Denmark wishes to place on the direct link between the words in conventions and actions taken (the specific cooperation in e.g. environmental assistance). |
| That contracts for environmental assistance projects ask the project holder to prepare an English-language fact sheet containing information on the relevance of the project in relation to the international environmental agreement in question, and a summary. These fact sheets should be used by convention staff workers and the officers who administer environmental assistance. |