Regional SD strategies and LA 21 initiatives

There are practically no regional initiatives on SD in Lithuania. One third of local authorities 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 the 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 the Siauliai City Municipality in 2007.
• Sustainability and Integrated Management projects (Managing Urban Europe-25 project (Kaunas City Municipality, the Siauliai City Municipality; and SUSTAINMENT Project (the Panevezys City Municipality).
• Ministry of Environment has carried out sustainability survey at local level in 2007.
• UBC has promoted Europe a wide sustainability process involving local authorities of Lithuania in particular the Aalborg Commitment processes, including approx. 660 signatory cities and regional authorities. In Lithuania 2 cities have signed it.
• At present most of LA21 initiatives are not active any more. However, there is a number of projects ongoing at a local municipalities level related to the implementation of sustainable development, particularly climate change, quality of life etc.

In recent yers there were more focuson vertical implementation of NSDS.

Participation of stakeholders in sub-national activities

There is a 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 operate in cities. Both Alytus and Kaunas City Municipalities have made the Aalborg Commitment baseline review reports. Moreover, Kaunas city has developed a Strategic development plan for 2005-2015 in accordance with the Aalborg commitments and it is revised every year (last revision in 2012).

Indicators used at 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.