The EU4Environment project held an online event Enhancing skills for a green transition in the Eastern Partnership countries as part of the EU Green Week on June 8, 2023.
The Eastern Partnership Civil Society Forum was represented at this event by Maryna Kozlovska, a representative of the Ukrainian National Platform, an expert of the National Environmental Center of Ukraine and the Charity Fund “Ukrainian Refugees in Portugal”.
The event was aimed at both state authorities and business. A group of speakers from international institutions and the Eastern Partnership region presented to government officials:
- e-learning course on green economy for civil servants;
- review of capacity-building measures for environmental compliance systems;
- strategic environmental assessment (SEA) trainings, with a special session on Ukraine, to support greening as part of post-war urban reconstruction.
Maryna Kozlovska’s speech (the presentation is available at the link) was devoted to the issue of introducing European standards and rules for the acquisition of green skills by representatives of public administration and business. The speech became a key component of section 4 of the program of the event “Spreading ecological thinking among individuals and communities”.
Maryna Kozlovska emphasized that the establishment of systematic programs for the training of experts and public activists with an emphasis on Ukraine during martial law and post-war reconstruction requires increased attention to the accelerated implementation of European law, methods and standards in Ukraine. Such programs should be closely related to global programs and methods of prevention and elimination of the consequences of environmental risks and disasters, take into account the aspects of man-made disasters, which are manifested today on numerous scales, including the emergency situation with the explosion of the Kakhovskaya dam.
The Ukrainian expert community of the Eastern Partnership draws attention to the needs of urgent analysis and assessment of the relevance of laboratory methods and other metrological systems used / available during the war and post-war restoration, their compliance with European standards and methods, with the establishment of their full validation and verification.
In particular, the speech touched on EU priorities regarding strategic tasks for the development of the metrological system and EU standards in the context of grandiose climate change adaptation programs, which were updated as strategic needs for digitalization and the EU’s green transition in January of this year. At the same time, the proposed approaches will contribute to solving such extremely important tasks as creating new jobs for the green reconstruction of Ukraine, establishing social rehabilitation of numerous inclusive communities based on the specifics of individual communities affected by the war.
The organizers of the event expressed warm support for the intentions of the Ukrainian expert community regarding the need to create such evaluation data and inform the public. The establishment of such programs, in cooperation with the public administration sector and business, scientific and educational communities, international humanitarian aid structures, should raise to a new level public support and involvement in the entire process of the European integration promotion of Ukraine, significantly expand the communication space between the Ukrainian and European communities.