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RESEARCH PROJECT CARRIED OUT IN 2006 WITH SUPPORT FROM THE FORD FOUNDATION

News, October 2006.

The Fund for Sustainable Development was awarded a grant by the Ford Foundation to study energy-efficiency approaches furthering sustainable community development.  Energy-efficiency is an issue of special importance in Russia where despite its abundant natural resources, the system of managing municipal resources is extremely inefficient; while the relatively low personal incomes and the quite limited financial capacities of municipal councils are hampering social development in communities. An optimization of municipal spending will allow local authorities to resolve the most critical problems connected with inadequate funding and improve local management.

In the autumn and winter of 2006, specialists from the Fund for Sustainable Development monitored over 20 communities across all of Russia and drew up a list of typical local priorities in the sphere of energy efficiency, environmental protection, and socio-economic development. Special attention was paid to such regions as Primorsky and Khabarovsk Krais, the Republic of Karelia and Nizhny Novgorod Oblast.

Project activities included the development of effective mechanisms of reinvesting energy savings into projects addressing such problems as poverty and unemployment and aimed at improving the quality of life in communities and increasing civic awareness. The Ford Foundation received a proposal to form a network of model communities in Russia to demonstrate approaches based on the principles of inexhaustible use of local resources, energy efficiency, increased transparency of decision-making, and stakeholder engagement. Their possibility to accumulate and trade emissions quotas in the framework of the Kyoto Protocol was also assessed.

This project helped to identify activities that are most effective both from the economic and socio-environmental points of view and targeted toward reducing energy consumption by utility services and social institutions (at present these account for up to 70% of local budget spending), as well as by middle and small sized businesses and other organizations.

The results of the study will help the Ford Foundation design its own social and environmental programs in Russia.