Thirty-five public environmental organizations from the Central Asian states and Mongolia took part in the public consultations of the European Bank of Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) on the social-environmental policy and public information policy, held on 4 April 2008 in Bishkek. At the meeting, concrete proposals on policy update were made, including: extension of the deadline to announce information about new projects funded by the EBRD and impose it as a duty on the bank clients; deadline to disclose results of assessment of the nature protection and social consequences of the project implementation; increase ways and methods of bank information dissemination: besides the bank website, disseminate EBRDK project documents through the local mass media and hardcopies; timely translation of the project documents in languages of the countries where these projects are implemented; exclusion of agreements related to the technical assistance projects from the paragraph “On confidential information”. More detailed information on the public consultations related to the EBRD new policies is presented in further news on the website: http://www.ebrd.com/about/policies/enviro/policy/review/index.htm.
