EBRD-CSO NewsletterKeeping you up to date with the EBRD

April - June 2015 EBRD-CSO Newsletter 1

Civil Society Programme at the 2015 EBRD Annual MeetingThe Civil Society Programme 2015 was held on 14-15 May in Tbilisi, Georgia, alongside the EBRD Annual Meeting and Business Forum. The event provided a platform for dialogue between a record number of civil society representatives – a total of 145 participants from 18 countries – and the EBRD’s staff and senior management. It concluded with two dedicated sessions with the Board of Directors and the EBRD President.

During the 2015 edition of the Programme, the EBRD Civil Society Engagement Unit (CSEU) presented the first results of its new initiative – the Civil Society Capacity Building Framework – whereby it raises awareness and transfers skills to civil society organisations (CSOs) in order to build their capacity in the countries in which the EBRD invests.

The main event of the Programme was a panel entitled Youth Employment: ‘Lost in Translation’ between Skills and Employers’ Needs. This dedicated panel on youth employment brought together representatives of the private sector, development organisations, civil society and the EBRD’s own experts.

This year, the Programme also featured multi-stakeholder roundtable sessions on broader transition and development topics, including social entrepreneurship, innovative approaches to CSO engagement by international organisations, Sustainable Development Goals and climate change, as well as road safety.

Speakers included, among others, representatives from World Bank, United Nations, Organization for

Security and Co-operation in Europe, Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ), United States Agency for International Development (USAID), local and international CSOs and government representatives, including the Deputy Mayor of Tbilisi and the first Deputy Minister of Environment and Natural Resources Protection in Georgia.

The Programme has traditionally provided civil society participants with opportunities for dialogue with EBRD management on specific investment projects and policy dialogue activities, as well as with the Board of Directors and the President on the EBRD’s key strategic directions. The focused sessions were characterised by three main themes: EBRD investments in the energy sector and natural resources;

April-June 2015

Welcome to the quarterly CSO Newsletter

In this issue we report on the Civil Society Programme 2015, which was held on 14-15

May in Tbilisi, Georgia, as part of the EBRD Annual Meeting and Business Forum. You can also read about the conclusions of the panel discussion on youth employment and the EBRD’s steps towards greater openness by publishing data via the International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI).

In this edition of the newsletter, we also update you on the meetings between the EBRD senior management, Board Directors and civil society representatives in FYR Macedonia, Kazakhstan, Turkey and Ukraine. As always, we bring you the latest news about the Bank’s dialogue with CSOs on policy and country strategies, recent projects and initiatives.

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transparency and accountability in EBRD projects; and human rights issues in Azerbaijan and the SEMED countries.

The 2015 Civil Society Programme moreover introduced several innovations to the flagship event of the Bank’s engagement with civil society. For the first time, CSOs had the chance to shape the Programme through a social media consultation. In addition, CSOs were invited to submit proposals for the organisation of a discussion panel dedicated to issues of specific interest to the Caucasus region and EBRD stakeholders. From 16 submissions, the CSEU selected a winning proposal by Eastern Alliance for Safe and Sustainable Transport (EASST) entitled “Effective local stakeholder partnerships to improve road safety in the Caucasus”.

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EBRD enhances openness with International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI)The EBRD has made a significant step towards greater openness by starting to publish data on its operations via the International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI).

IATI seeks to improve the transparency of institutions such as the EBRD – and others – by providing common definitions and publishing standards for their activity, thus making information about their work easier to access, use and compare.

In common with more than 300 other organisations, the EBRD is now publishing the information about its work in IATI’s agreed electronic format (XML) and linking it to the IATI registry. It has also made public its IATI implementation schedule – that is, the data it will report

– in line with the agreed standards for Development Finance Institutions (DFIs) and international finance institutions (IFIs).

To reach the point where this could happen involved negotiating a way in which private-sector-focused DFIs and IFIs with higher confidentiality requirements than their public sector-focused counterparts could report data.

“The EBRD was instrumental in supporting the work of the DFI/IFI working group by organising its first meeting in the Bank in May 2013, which allowed for a frank discussion as to what commercially oriented institutions like the EBRD can realistically publish,” says Mandeep Bains, head of External Policy Coordination, whose team coordinated

the Bank’s engagement with IATI.

Shortly after the Bank began reporting data to the IATI standard in late May, the NGO Publish What You Fund (PWYF) issued its 2015 EU Aid Transparency Review. This noted that the EBRD had “taken important steps towards transparency by starting to publish to IATI in 2015” but added that the Bank remained in the “poor” category in PWYF’s ranking of aid transparency within the EU.

“In time, information published through IATI will form a substantial dataset,” says Mandeep Bains. “In due course, we hope that this will be reflected in external assessments of the Bank’s transparency, such as that produced by Publish What You Fund.”

Panel discussion: Youth Employment ‘Lost in Translation’ between Skills and Employers’ NeedsAs part of the Civil Society Programme at the 2015 EBRD Annual Meeting, a panel discussion on youth employment explored the ways in which the EBRD can harness its close engagement with private sector employers and civil society organisations to promote employment and economic inclusion for youth. Growing youth unemployment figures in many parts of the EBRD region are reaching alarming levels and this is largely caused by the mismatch between the needs of employers and the skills of the high number of young people seeking to enter the workforce.

The panel was moderated by Anastasia Fetsi, Head of Operations at the European Training Foundation; and speakers included: Barbara Rambousek, Senior Inclusion Specialist at the EBRD; Damir Ibrisimovic, CEO of AtlantBH; Jochem Theis, Georgia Country Manager at GIZ; and Salvatore Nigro, Europe CEO at Education For Employment. Biljana Radonjic Ker-Lindsay, Head of CSE Unit, acted as a discussant. The panellists agreed that the skills mismatch in the labour market is a major challenge for businesses across the EBRD regions. They stressed that investing in the development of young people’s professional skills could bring a significant economic return for private sector companies, while helping the latter better adapt to a changing global environment.

“Businesses need access to finance, but they also need access to human capital and should be prepared to contribute,” said Salvatore Nigro, of the Education

For Employment, an NGO acting as an intermediary between leading private sector companies and young people.

The panel concluded that private sector employers, schools and universities – as well as civil society – should join forces to

address the problem: employers should be clearer on what skills they require, educators should work more closely with employers to be able to adapt faster to the needs of the labour market, while civil society should promote youth employment through work-based learning initiatives.

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DIALOGUE

EBRD senior management and Board Directors meet with civil society organisations

EARLY CONSULTATION ON THE OHRID–PESTANI ROAD PROJECT IN FYR MACEDONIAOn 9-10 June the EBRD organised three consultation meetings with civil society in relation to the Ohrid–Pestani expressway in FYR Macedonia, which is being considered for financing by the Bank as part of the National Roads Programme. The meetings took place in the town of Ohrid and provided an opportunity to civil society organisations and representatives from local communities to meet with the project’s team and share comments and suggestions on environmental and social issues to be considered as part of the Environmental and Social Impact Assessment (ESIA) of the project. The ESIA is currently being prepared by the Public Enterprise for State Roads (PESR) and once finalised it will be open for public comment for a period of 120 calendar days.

EBRD BOARD DIRECTORS MEET WITH CIVIL SOCIETY IN UKRAINEAs part of the consultation visit to Ukraine, on 4 June the EBRD Board Directors met with representatives of Transparency International, Center UA, Reanimation Reform Package, International Renaissance Foundation and National Ecological Center in Kiev. The discussion

focused on the EBRD’s role in promoting the reform agenda, especially with regards to public administration and judiciary reforms. CSOs also called on the EBRD to promote energy efficiency reforms, as well as to improve public access to category B project documentation. The dialogue also touched on the role of the civil society in promoting anti-corruption measures in Ukraine. CSOs noted positive steps taken by the Ukrainian authorities, such as the launch of a police reform, the introduction of e-procurement and budget transparency.

EBRD CHIEF COMPLIANCE OFFICER MEETS WITH CSOs IN KAZAKHSTAN

On 28 April, the EBRD Chief Compliance Officer, Lisa Rosen, met with representatives of local civil society organisations in Almaty to learn their views on corporate governance,

transparency, accountability and the rule of law. The representatives of Crude Accountability and Soros Foundation Kazakhstan took part in the meeting. The EBRD Chief Compliance Officer assured CSOs that the Bank is committed to promoting the highest standards of integrity, corporate governance and transparency in all its activities. Financial integrity and due diligence are integrated into the Bank’s approval of all new business.

CIVIL SOCIETY WORKSHOP WITH INDEPENDENT ACCOUNTABILITY MECHANISMS OF IFIs IN TURKEY

On 12-13 May, the EBRD’s Project Complaint Mechanism, along with the World Bank Group’s Inspection Panel and Compliance/Advisor/Ombudsman, the EIB’s Complaints Mechanism, and the Black Sea Trade and Development Bank’s Complaints Mechanism hosted a regional outreach event on Independent Accountability Mechanisms (IAMs) in Istanbul. Over 30 representatives of civil society organisations (CSOs) participated from Albania, Estonia, Hungary, Kazakhstan, Kosovo, Kyrgyz Republic, Latvia, the Netherlands, Russia, Serbia, Tajikistan, Turkey and the United States. The two-day workshop was aimed at sharing information about IAMs, exchanging views with CSOs about their experiences, and discussing ideas about promoting accountability and redressing harm by submitting complaints.

For more information visit:www.ebrd.com/civilsocietyIN BRIEF à

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EBRD supports better water services in Aktobe, Kazakhstan The EBRD and the government of Kazakhstan are continuing cooperation on a wide-scale programme to modernise public services in the country. The Bank will lend up to 2 billion tenge (€10 million equivalent) to the city of Aktobe’s municipal water and wastewater company, Akbulak, to be used for modernising the water and wastewater services in the city. The capital grant will be provided under the Enhanced Partnership Agreement between the EBRD and the government of Kazakhstan, signed in May 2014, which sets out a programme of joint investment of EBRD and government funds into projects that improve people’s lives. Technical assistance is also expected to be funded by the government of Kazakhstan under the Enhanced Partnership.

Total project value: €18.4 millionEBRD finance: €10 million EBRD supports expansion of the fibre optic broadband network in FYR Macedonia The EBRD is supporting the expansion of the fibre optic infrastructure in FYR Macedonia to provide improved regional broadband network connectivity in the Western Balkans. The EBRD is extending up to €2 million to Neotel, one of the regional leaders in the information and telecommunications sector, to finance the expansion of the fibre optic infrastructure in FYR Macedonia. Stronger and better broadband services will allow the numbers of FYR Macedonian internet subscribers to rise, which remains almost half of the European average at 27.7 per cent.

Multilateral development banks provide US$ 28 billion in climate finance in 2014 The world’s six large multilateral development banks – the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the African Development Bank, the Asian Development Bank, the European Investment Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank and the World Bank Group – delivered over US$ 28 billion in financing last year to help developing countries and emerging economies mitigate and adapt to the challenges of climate change. The latest figures bring total collective commitments of the past four years to more than US$ 100 billion. In 2014, the six banks together provided over US$ 23 billion dedicated to mitigation efforts and US$ 5 billion for adaptation work, according to the fourth joint report on MDB Climate Finance.

Key dates and contactsPublic comments period

Country strategies

Bulgaria 7 May – 22 June 2015

Tajikistan 8 May – 23 June 2015

Romania August – September 2015

Turkey August – September 2015

ContactsCivil Society Engagement UnitBiljana Radonjic Ker-Lindsay Head of Civil Society Engagement Unit

Olga Filippova Principal Civil Society Manager (Russia, Ukraine, Caucasus and the Baltic states)

Luisa Balbi Principal Civil Society Manager (Western Balkans and the Southern and Eastern Mediterranean (SEMED))

Cristina Buzasu Civil Society Manager (Central Europe and Central Asia)

Tel: +44 20 7338 8197 Fax: +44 20 7338 6047

Email: cso@ebrd.com

European Bank for Reconstruction and DevelopmentOne Exchange Square EC2A 2JN, London United Kingdom Website: www.ebrd.com

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