| WYG International consultants provided support to the municipalities which most badly affected by the closure of the Ignalina nuclear power plant in Lithuania. The power plant was the dominant employer in the region of Utena and 99% of workers lived in the municipalities of Visaginas, Ignalina and Zarasai, but the closure of the plant was a requirement for EU entry.
The objective of the project was to assist the municipalities to begin social and economic adjustment away from the power plant . This was done by supporting the establishment and implementation of three local partnerships – the Municipality Working Groups, led by the Mayors of each municipality. The Municipality Working Groups comprised representation from key local stakeholders in each area; in addition to the local authority representatives, these included local labour offices, SMEs, NGOs and community groups and educational and other institutions. IMC experts facilitated and supported the establishment of these partnerships and provided the secretariat for each group.
The facilitation and establishment of successful partnerships was an especially formidable achievement in the region because of the different ethnic and national balances and considerable sensitivities and social tensions around these issues (In the region there are 60% ethnic Russians and 10% Ukranian and Bylorussian; most of the Ignalina workforce speak Russian as a first language and most are not Lithuanian citizens).
A key task for the MWGs in the first stage was to establish and disseminate factual information about the decommissioning process of Ignalina and about the predicted effect on employment and local businesses. WYG International conducted in-depth social and economic analyses of the local conditions and labour market and presented to the MWGs a detailed assessment of the social and economic consequences of the planned closure. This informed the decisions of the MWGs in strategic planning and priority selection.
The next stage was to assist MWGs to establish three Local Community Initiative Programmes – these are grass-roots practical community and local level employment generating actions that could set in train preparatory measures to mitigate the negative consequences of planned closure. These were stimulated by a small grants scheme where successful projects were selected by the MWGs with the advice and support of the WYG International team.
WYG International supported the development, elaboration and implementation of these initiatives whose implementers included NG0s, the labour offices, schools or educational establishments, local small businessmen, and local agencies for services or tourism. |
