UNDP continued in 2005 its support to Belarus’ efforts in rehabilitation and sustainable development of the Chernobyl-affected areas. Under the chairmanship of UNDP Resident Representative, the Preparation and Assessment Committee of the Cooperation for Rehabilitation (CORE) Programme has approved 105 projects. Overall donor support to the programme has grown to over EURO 3.7 million while the number of signatories to the CORE Declaration of Principles has reached 30.
UNDP manages a Support Project to the Cooperation for Rehabilitation (CORE) Programme. The support project enabled a quick launch to this unique international programme on post-Chernobyl cooperation. It coordinated the work of its participants and structures, and brought in new partners to the CORE Programme. From the early days, CORE has brought together four Belarusian districts which suffered the most from the Chernobyl disaster: the Bragin and Chechersk districts (Gomel region), the Slavgorod district (Mogilev region) and the Stolin district (Brest region) as well as a wide range of national and international partners and donors.
Two sessions of the CORE’s Preparation and Assessment Committee (PAC) and Approval Board (AB) were held in 2005 during which 72 projects were approved thus bringing the total number of project proposals enrolled into the CORE Programme to 105. The first results of the CORE projects implementation were presented at a session of the PAC held in November 2005 in Chechersk under the chairmanship of UN Resident Coordinator, UNDP Representative in Belarus Ms. Cihan Sultanoglu. At present 7 small-scale projects have been completed and nineteen (19) projects are being implemented.
The activities of the CORE projects resulted, in particular, in two information and rehabilitation trips to Lithuania made by senior pupils of Chechersk district schools (the trips were supported by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Lithuania), the opening of the treatment and rehabilitation center “Window of Hope” on the premises of the kindergarten in Terebezhov village of the Stolin district (supported by OSCE Office in Minsk), modernization of six local radiation control centers in the Bragin district (implemented with the support from the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation and European Partnership Committee from France).
Under a project sponsored by OSCE Office in Minsk a significant contribution was made towards the creation of new jobs for young disabled people in Stolin. In a project implemented with the support of the UNDP, an educational and counseling center was opened at a secondary school in the village of Vaskovichy in the Slavgorod district The centre will help children and their family members to acquire practical skills to reduce the risk of radiation exposure, learn how to assess the radiological situation and make informed choices resulting in safe behaviour. A methodological text-book on radioecology and radiation safety for public schools teachers was developed under a project financed by UNESCO.
Fifty-four (54) local people participating in the CORE-Agri project, the largest thematic project of the CORE Programme supported by FERT (France), Embassy of France in Belarus, UNOCHA, TACIS and the World Bank were able to learn about the latest achievements in agricultural technologies at specialized exhibitions in Belarus, France and Poland. 36 agricultural producers in the Stolin and Slavgorod districts received micro-credits totaling 72.9 million Belarusian rubles (EURO 28,000). Regular tutorials on radiological culture for pregnant women in the Stolin district were organized in the framework of “Health and Maternity” thematic project with the support from Komchernobyl and UNFPA.
Visits of Belarusian pupils from the Stolin district to France and French students to the Stolin district were organized by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of France and Poitiers municipality in April-May 2005. The visits were a part of the CORE thematic project “Practical radiological culture, intergenerational and international memory and education”. Also a number of educational events, publications and materials on practical radiological culture for the Stolin and Bragin districts schools have been prepared within the project.
The UNDP CORE Supporting Project actively mobilizes resources necessary for implementation of the projects of the Programme. In 2005 national and international partners provided funds for 46 projects amounting to over two million euros. Five foreign and international organizations became new signatories of the CORE Program Declaration of Principles. The number of signatories of the Declaration increased from 11 in October 2003 to 30 at the end of 2005.
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105 project proposals with the total budget of over EURO 8 million, including 27 thematic projects and 78 small-scale initiatives, developed and approved within the CORE Programme up to now, of which:
- 7 small-scale projects have been implemented in full;
- 19 projects are under various stages of implementation, of which 15 have full financing and 4 – partial;
- 26 are currently under approval and registration according to the Belarusian legislation;
- 53 are still searching for donor financing.
- so far donors allocated EURO 3.7 million for projects implementation, of which EC TACIS share is around 45%.
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An educational and counseling center was opened on 15 November
in a secondary school of the Vaskovichy village of the Slavgorod district (the
Mogilev region). The new center will help children and members of their families
to build up practical skills of reducing the risk of radiation exposure, to
learn how to assess the radiological situation and to make informed choices
needed to develop safe behaviors. Thanks to the practical radiological culture
course of the center, people will become aware of the dangers the
radiation possesses and they will know what to do to reduce the risk of
radiation exposure. The center is equipped with all the necessary devices to
detect and measure radiation. Study books and information brochures on radiation
security are lined in the classroom’s shelves. People come to the center to
measure milk, potatoes and meat, which they get from their small homestead land.
Core Programme in numbers
As of 1 June 2008 146 projects (including 35 topical and 111
small-scale initiatives), initiated by the population of the four CORE
participating districts are designed and adopted in the CORE framework with a
budget totaling about 9 million euro.
Among them:
34 projects completed
17 projects under
implementation
19 projects under preparation for implementation
73
projects to the amount of more than 3 million euro are still looking for
partners
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