New BBF project with benefits for the civil society and the nature is starting

Bulgarian Biodiversity Foundation and the Norwegian Environmental Agency are partners in a new project, which is going to be in favour of the civic society and the nature protection in Bulgaria.

In February 2014, the Bulgarian Biodiversity Foundation (BBF) has started a new project, bearing the long title “Building Capacity of Non-governmental Organizations, Youths and Citizens for Use of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and Strengthening the Monitoring Skills and Advocacy of Policies for Regional Sustainable Development”. The project is financed under the NGO Program in Bulgaria under the European Economic Area Financial Mechanism 2009-2014. http://www.ngogrants.bg/

The duration of the project is one year and the total budget is 49 438 euro.
BBF has again a Norwegian partner – the project implementation will be done in close cooperation with the Norwegian Environmental Agency (Miljødirektoratet), which will help the continuation of the existing partnership between the BBF and the Norwegian Directorate for Nature Management (which is now part of Miljødirektoratet). The two organizations have already successfully implemented a project for the sustainable development of Strandja Mountain in the period of 2009 – 2012.

The main goal of the current project with be to build the capacity for monitoring and advocacy of NGOs, youth and the society as a whole in the field of the sustainable spatial development.

The successful implementation of project activities will contribute to the achievement of the following results:

• Developed unified and well organized data base with the BBF spatial data, that has been collected through the years as a result of implementation of various projects in the main geographical regions of the organization.
• Developed web base platform – GIS platform, which will provide public access to the BBF spatial data base.
• 3 seminars for monitoring and advocacy through the use of GIS instruments conducted.
• Successful integration of the Norwegian experience through the participation and provision of consultation for the project activities.
• Increase of the public awareness towards possibilities, benefits and ways of utilization of GIS data for monitoring and advocacy for sustainable development policies.

This document is created with the financial support of the NGO Program in Bulgaria under the Financial mechanism of the European Economic Area. The Bulgarian Biodiversity Foundation bears the full responsibility for the content of the document and under no circumstances can be assumed that the content of the document reflects the official opinion of the Financial mechanism of the European Economic Area and the Operator of the NGO Program in Bulgaria.