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Amur Initiative Target Program

Amur Initiative – Phase - 1

Amur Initiative – Phase - 2

Amur Initiative - Phase - 3
Main Results

Program news:

Grant Competition Announcement  (February 2009 ã)

Amur Initiative Phase 2 projects have been approved at the Fund for Sustainable Development Advisory Committee Working group meeting. (April 2009)

Second Phase of Amur Initiative was launched in Khabarovskiy Krai (June 2009)

Amur Initiative Phase 2 delivers first practical results for rural citizens (September 2009)

The Amur Initiative seminar in Khabarovsk demonstrated significant results of the program (November 2009)

USAID delegation visited Amur Initiative projects
(March, 2010)

Amur Initiative Phase 3 projects have been approved at the Fund for Sustainable Development Consulting Committee Working group meeting. (July, 2010)

«The Amur Initiative Program has granted
access to clean drinking water to
thousands of residents of riverside settlements
who were compelled to use
river water badly contaminated by a host
of toxicants. »

A. B. Levintal,
Deputy Chairman of Khabarovsk Krai
Government – Minister of Economic
Development and External Relations
(from March 2009,
Deputy Plenipotentiary Representative
of the RF President in the Russian Far
East Administrative District)

Amur Initiative Target Program

Supplying clean drinking water to Amur riverside settlements is one of the most critical issues facing Khabarovsk Krai. The continuing pollution of the key waterway of this region both from the Chinese side and by reviving Russian industrial facilities calls for a set of measures to provide communities in small settlements located along the river with safe sources of drinking water. However, local self-government lacks adequate resources for addressing this challenge in full. After the tragic events at the chemical factory in Jilin (Northern China) in 2006, all the problems in this sphere have came to the surface.

In 2007, following a request from Khabarovsk Krai Government the Fund for Sustainable Development with support from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) launched the Amur Initiative Target Program, which is a component of the Community Development Support Program in the Russian Federation.

A target grant contest became the key mechanism of the Amur Initiative, which involves operative monitoring and improvement of the quality of drinking water in small villages located along the banks of Amur River, whose waters are currently being catastrophically contaminated.

In the course of this Program in 2008-2010, the following was achieved in the riverside settlements as a result of projects selected on a competitive basis:

The Program, which is funded by USAID and Khabarovsk Krai Government, is managed by the Fund for Sustainable Development in partnership with:

During Phase 1 of the target Program, FSD transferred $ 149, 860 allocated by USAID to five organizations for implementing concrete practical projects on the banks of Amur River. The average grant amount was $29, 972. Another $90,000 for this effort came from budgets of various levels and still another $50,000 was donated by local businesses (fish processing and tourist) interested in the availability of new water sources.

The Program was a success and this is confirmed by many letters of gratitude received from  regional and local government agencies of Khabarovsk Krai, businesses and citizens.

Considering the strong interest displayed by communities in this Program, in 2009 the Fund for Sustainable Development began work on its second phase “Replicating the results of the targeted Program for improving drinking water quality in settlements along Amur River in Khabarovsk Krai (Amur Initiative – Phase 2)” and the third phase “Improving efficiency and integrity of rural drinking water supply systems in settlements along Amur river in Khabarovsk Krai” was started in 2010.

The following mechanisms of the Program make it possible to successfully fulfill its projects:

  1. Partnerships. Riverside municipalities, local businesses, NGOs and citizens are involved in the Program.
  2. Ongoing monitoring. The Program Administrator and donor representatives keep track of project progress on a regular basis.
  3. Project sustainability. Sustainability and a potential for development after the end of funding from the Amur Initiative Program had to be clearly demonstrated at the stage of project design.
  4. Cost-sharing. To be awarded technical assistance, the applicants had to raise at least the same amount of matching funds from other sources.

The Third Phase is aimed at further developing the important successes of the Program reached in 2007-2009. Under this phase, six concrete practical projects have been awarded funding for providing clean drinking water to 13,000 rural residents in Khabarovsk Krai who had been suffering from intestinal diseases, hepatitis A and toxicoses as a result of using dangerous water.

 

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