Working Group for drafting Environmental Protection Strategy meets for the third time to deliver measures and activities for the Strategy’s objectives

Young Researchers of Serbia and its partners in the VOLVOX – The Strength of Community project BOS and RERI attended a third meeting of the Working Group for drafting the Environmental Protection Strategy – “Green Agenda for Serbia” focused on developing measures and activities to achieve the goals of the Strategy in accordance with the pillars of the Green Agenda in Serbia.

Ms. Sandra Dokic, State Secretary of the Ministry of Environmental Protection, highlighted that, for the first time, the Republic of Serbia is adopting a document that will be in line with the Green Agenda and that will clarify how the Green Agenda will be implemented in Serbia.

While acknowledging that the Strategy is a comprehensive document, Ms. Dokic expressed gratitude to civil society organizations for their constructive feedback throughout the process. She also announced that a gender analysis is currently being developed, which will contribute to a more gender sensitive document.

Speaking about the EU experiences, Mr. Antoine Avignon, from the EU Delegation to Serbia, pointed out that there has never been such energy in any joint work as there is with the Green Agenda at the moment, which is in some way creating a new DNA in environmental protection policies. According to Mr. Avignon, Serbia’s dedicated work on the Strategy’s development makes a substantial contribution to the European Union, as well as the rest of the world.

Ms. Marina Ilic, Head of the Team for the Development of the Environmental Protection Strategy, reported that the analysis of the situation is ongoing as part of the ex-ante analysis as well as the ex-post analysis. She also mentioned numerous bilateral meetings with various ministries, agencies, and institutions, that were held in the period between the sessions of the two Working Groups and the participation of UNDP representatives in the consultations held in March as part of the VOLVOX- The Strength of Community project . Ms. Ilic presented an ambitious timeline for further steps in the development of the Strategy, according to which the Draft Strategy will be sent to the ministries for their opinion at the very end of the year, while the adoption itself is expected at the beginning of next year.

The Working Group’s upcoming meeting is set for July 3–4, at which time work will be done on the study of the effects of the selected measures, the finalisation of the Action Plan’s activities, and the forecasting of expenditures and sources of funding for the Strategy.