The GTOS Secretariat at FAO Headquarters in Rome provides guidance for the implementation of regional activities. The CEE component is a regional network within the GTOS System of Networks (GT-Net). Each network will nominate an officer as a member of the GT-Net Panel, which serves as a Scientific and Technical Committee for GTOS. The member for the CEE region should only be designated when the programme is fully operative.
The FAO SEUR office in Budapest, which supported the first phase of the CEE programme, could serve as a centre (Regional Coordination Unit, RCU) for regional activities. Its main task would be to bring together existing monitoring networks that can provide relevant information to specific regional environmental problems.
The RCU has to support communication among member institutions and programmes. Being the first of its kind, the GTOS CEE programme has to handle general questions as well, such as data policy, quality and harmonization. The planning procedure should involve the Working Group and Panel on Data and Information. The need for centralized databases was rejected at the GTOS Synthesis workshop. It was agreed that basic data should be stored and interpreted at the sites. However, a certain degree of synthesis of the results, based on metadata centres is indispensable. The RCU will provide assistance to participants to obtain funding, support national monitoring systems and capacity building. RCU should ensure synergy and integration between the global and the regional programmes.
The first phase of the CEE programme included an intensive round of contacts with potential member institutions and official authorities for the environment. The group of potential GTOS members that resulted from this first stage could make up the regional core centre.
Representatives of the most active institutions met at the Synthesis Workshop in Budapest (September 1999). Finding ways of enlarging the circle of members and of completing the observation network according to the GHOST hierarchy (five tier observation mechanism) is a high priority.
National Focal Points (NFP) have been identified for the four countries that participated in the detailed environmental assessments (Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Slovak Republic). Their role should consist in the continuation of national programmes, keeping contacts with environmental authorities, acting as spokesman on national requirements within GTOS. The identification of NFPs for the other CEE countries requires an agreement between national environmental authorities and the GTOS Secretariat.
The NFPs should be senior individuals with in-depth knowledge of available environmental data and information in their country and an ability to promote collaboration among more junior experts on specific tasks. NFPs should form the basis for a GTOS CEE Board that meets annually to discuss regional specific issues and provide guidance on programme priorities and implementation. The NFP board should be supported by the RCU to help coordinate activities and should be represented on the GT-Net Panel.
The establishment of National Committees for GTOS is encouraged, although these may not be essential during the earliest phases of the programme. The use of existing environmental committees with national coverage (e.g. National MAB Committees) could be an alternative. Individual nations should be left to choose which mechanism is most suitable for them.
Fig. 3.1 Global Hierarchical Observing Strategy (GHOST)
Fig. 3.2 Structure of a GTOS Central and Eastern Europe programme in the GT-Net
