Regional Environmental Center for Central and Eastern Europe (REC), Hungary

The Regional Environmental Center for Central and Eastern Europe (REC) is a non-partisan, non-advocacy, not-for-profit international organisation with a mission to assist in solving environmental problems in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE).

The center fulfils this mission by promoting cooperation among non-governmental organisations, governments, businesses and other environmental stakeholders, and by supporting the free exchange of information and public participation in environmental decision making. The REC was established in 1990 by the United States, the European Commission and Hungary. Today, the REC is legally based on a charter signed by the governments of 29 countries and the European Commission, and on an international agreement with the government of Hungary.

The REC has its head office in Szentendre, Hungary, and country offices and field offices in 17 beneficiary countries, which are: Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Montenegro, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia and Turkey. Recent donors are the European Commission and the governments of Albania, Austria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Canada, Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Montenegro, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, United Kingdom, and the United States, as well as other inter-governmental and private institutions.

Through the network of country and field offices, the REC promotes cooperation among non-governmental organisations, governments, businesses, media and other environmental stakeholders, and supports the free exchange of information and public participation in environmental decision-making. REC has been traditionally working on Climate Change, Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency issues. Among others quality projects related to UNFCCC and Kyoto Protocol, covering awareness raising, capacity building, compliance, mitigation and adaptation, cross-border cooperation projects were funded over the CEE region. In addition a major financial support scheme called Ecolinks was run, in which quality projects related to cleaner production and energy efficiency projects were funded above 10mUSD over the CEE region.

Also, REC served as the Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Partnership’s (REEEP) Regional Secretariat for CEE and Turkey, under which several activities were done involving all groups of stakeholders for promoting sustainable energy such as training for governments, regulators, media, cooperation on energy efficiency in buildings with businesses and financing institutions etc. The wide range and number of successful projects implemented in the area of climate change and energy, prove that REC is indeed successful and highly evaluated since it serves for the benefit of the region.

rec.org