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State of the Environment in Riga 2001
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Local Agenda 21

Sustainable development (SD) is no more a mere idea and theoretical principle. It is quite a practical thing. Many countries and cities world-wide and in the Baltic Sea Region in particular implement their development purposefully, basing on sustainability principles.

One of the characteristic features of cities in Latvia is that in lieu of Local Agenda 21, environmental strategies and action plans have been developed that attempt to also include the broader aspects of SD. This phenomenon finds its roots in the fact that initiators of the LA 21 process (typically municipal environmental departments), to date, have not received strong political support and thus meaningful input from other municipal sectors and stakeholders in the community has been limited. Consequently, not only has community consensus not been achieved but limited integration of environmental, social and economic development issues in municipal policies exists.

In the last several years, the City of Riga has undertaken many initiatives to incorporate the concept of SD into the city's operations as well as the behaviour and attitudes of Riga inhabitants. This process is only just beginning, andRiga 's biggest challenge has been fostering a participatory and transparent policy-making environment.

 There are a number of problems creating barriers to sustainable development. Those more important are mentioned below:

  • lack of co-operation between public, municipality, interest groups
  • insufficient public education and level of environmental awareness
  • insufficient involvement of public in solving environmental problems
  • shortage of regular targeted information about environment
  • lack of experience and the resources

The integration of sustainability issues into sectoral planning and decision-making in Riga is limited and governance often takes the traditional command-and-control form.

Nevertheless, Riga citizens are also learning to become more active in expressing their opinion. More than 10,000 signatures were collected into a petition against disordered development of the old part of the city. As a consequence, the Riga City Council announced moratorium to stop all construction activity before the Old Riga Development Plan was ready.

Creating a dialogue between all the stakeholders is a complex issue to be developed by all parties. The recently established Riga City Environment Centre "Agenda 21" aims to increase citizen and stakeholder awareness regarding question of sustainability and to increase stakeholder capacity for constructive participation in the planning and decision-making process.

The Centre acts as a mediator and a bridge between public and the City Council. At present it has 5 employees and its first project with the Mezaparks Neighbourhood Association in 2001 received funding from the Phare Access programme. The aim of the project is to create a local plan and indicators of sustainability for the Mezaparks area together with the City of Helsinki Environment.

The Environmental Strategy is a blueprint for raising the profile of sustainability issues in city development and land use planning and decision-making, improving the environmental, social and economic environment and thus the quality of life for the residents of Riga.

Both the Environmental Strategy and LA 21 Environment Centre are products of an EU-funded co-operation project between Riga and the municipality of Norrköping in Sweden.

The LA-21 process in Riga is in its developmental stages. Following adoption of the Environmental Action Programme, measures contained in the Environmental Strategy will be implemented. Development of SD indicators is considered in the Environmental Strategy. The proposed SD indicators could be indicators developed to best reflect local development and consumption trends or could be based on one of the existing SD indicator sets (e.g. European Common Indicators) to allow for the comparison of sustainability in Riga with other European cities.

 

This page was last updated: 2004.11.22.