Lithuania

Basic information

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Mechanisms of Vertical Integration

National — sub-national linkages

Generally, the NSDS is understood as ‘umbrella strategy’. There are many sectoral strategies and for their implementation, the municipalities are important, e.g. environmental issues like air, water, waste, sea management, etc. In this context, special seminars are held for municipalities on NSDS issues and implementation, including seminars on special issues like SD education.

LA 21 initiatives have been established in about 1/3 of all municipalities. However, they address only environmental issues. Therefore, the Environmental Centre for Administration and Technology (ECAT-Lithuania) has developed projects for developing local SD strategies which cover broader issues, not only the environment. There is, however, not much coordination between the NSDS and the local SD strategies and SD activities.

EU linkages

The renewed EU Strategy for Sustainable Development (EU SDS) that was adopted in June 2006 foresees that Member States bi-annually report about how they address the priorities of the EU SDS. Lithuania has published its first national report on implementing the EU SDS in summer 2007.

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Mechanisms of Horizontal Integration

The National Commission for Sustainable Development (NCSD), established in 2000, includes representatives of the various national ministries and is chaired by the Prime Minister.  Policy coherence is presented in the NSDS as one of the main principles for the implementation of SD: SD objectives and tasks must be implemented by incorporating environmental, economic and social development objectives into strategies of different economic sectors and the development of regions.

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Evaluation and Review

For the UN Conference in Johannesburg in 2002, Lithuania developed a ‘National Report on SD’.

Implementation reports are to be submitted bi-annually to the NCSD by a task force established by the Ministry of Environment with the support from other ministries. In 2005, a first report about the implementation of the NSDS was finalized. However, this report is currently available in Lithuanian only.

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Indicators and Monitoring

The Lithuanian NSDS provides a set of 75 indicators. These indicators are grouped according to the three pillars of SD: ‘environmental quality’, ‘economic development’ and ‘social development’. The indicators are also published in the 2004 Statistical Yearbook of Lithuania.

The full list(s) of indicators as identified by a study commissioned by Eurostat can be downloaded here:

• NSDS indicators (2003)

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Participation

The National Commission for SD (NCSD) was established in 2000 and included representatives of the various national ministries, NGOs and the business community. If necessary, other stakeholder groups were invited when their expertise in certain topics is necessary. The sub-national levels did not participate in meetings of the NCSD. However, the NCSD does not operate anymore and nor other commission/council has been established so far.

For a detailed documentation of all advisory and participatory councils (for SD and/or the environment) in this country, please go to the EEAC website at http://www.eeac-net.org/bodies/lithuania/lt_frame.htm and click on one of the listed institutions.

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Sub-national activities

Regional SD strategies and LA 21 initiatives

There are practically no regional initiatives on SD in Lithuania. One third of municipalities that had stated their commitments to start LA 21 processes in 1999 became more passive as there is no national support for subsidies to sustainability projects at local level. Several municipalities have been involved in city network, particularly Union of Baltic Cities (UBC) projects. Other activities are:

• Environmental management projects (EMAS, Peer Review Projects) were implemented in Panevezys City Municipality and Siauliai City Municipality in 2007.
• Sustainability and Integrated Management projects (Managing Urban Europe-25 project (Kaunas City Municipality, Siauliai City Municipality; and SUSTAINMENT Project (Panevezys City Municipality).
• Ministry of Environment has carried out sustainability survey at local level in 2007.
• UBC has promoted Europe wide sustainability process involving local authorities of Lithuania in particular the Aalborg Commitment processes, including approx. 550 signatory cities and regional authorities. In Lithuania 2 cities have signed and started to implement the Aalborg Commitments.
• The link of LA21 initiatives to the NSDS and/or regional SD strategies/plans is unfortunately very weak.

Participation of stakeholders in sub-national activities

There is a very weak stakeholder participation in the development of Environmental and SD Policy Programmes in Lithuania.

Evaluation and review mechanisms at the sub-national levels, also in the context of Lithuanian NSDS

Evaluation does not take place in cities. On municipality (Alytus City Municipality) has made an Aalborg Commitment baseline review report.

Indicators used on sub-national level

The cities in Lithuania are using almost only environmental indicators as local SD indicators. However, there are also some economic or social indicators used to determine progress in various cases, such as:

• Local GDP per capita, changes compared to previous year, relation compared to the national GDP per capita;
• Material investments per capita and relation to the national investments per capita;
• Employment rate of persons aged 15-64 by county and relation to the national employment rate;
• Unemployment rate and relation to the national unemployment rate, etc.

Contact details (names, institutional affiliation,email) of sub-national and/or Local Agenda 21 coordinators:

• for ECAT–Lithuania: Audrone Alijosiute (audrone@ecat.lt) - the main coordinator of Regional SD strategies and Local Agendas 21 in Lithuania;
• for Kaunas - Vilija Guzyte – (vilijag@kaunas.sav.lt) ;
• for Panevezys – Zita Tverkute (z.tverkute@panevezys.lt);
• for Siauliai – Romas Semeta (r.semeta@siauliai.lt);
• for Alytus – Vida Macerniene (v.macerniene@ams.lt).

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This Country Profile has been last updated on: Monday, 17 August 2009

For the sources used in the country profiles, please click here.