On 28 October, 2015 from 10:00 to 15:00 in Kyiv in the premises of the Aarhus Centre the assessment of civil society participation instruments in environmental policy planning, realization and monitoring were presented and discussed together with recommendations how to improve it.

The work during the round-table and workshop was based on discussion of problematic areas of public participation in environmental policy making in Ukraine, as well as on recommendations designed on the basis of the research conducted by UNENGO "MAMA-86" and named “The Assessment of Public Participation in Environmental Policy Development, Implementation and Monitoring”. The research was prepared within the project “Building Environmental Democracy in Ukraine”, funded by the EU and implemented by UNENGO “MAMA-86”

The main problematic areas of public participation in environmental policy making according to the research conducted are problematic access to data, including environmental data; low quality of environmental education and low public environmental awareness; contradictory environmental legislation; inadequate public participation procedures; inadequate communication between key stakeholders.

According to the research though more than 50% of environmental NGOs are participants of civil councils within miscellaneous environmental governmental and local administrative bodies and more than 60 % of them regularly write proposals and comments, most of them (over 70%) consider public participation in the sphere of environmental policy inefficient.

The main recommendations for improving public participation in environmental policy making according to the research were t pass the bills on Environmental Impact Assessment and Strategic Environmental Assessment; to introduce institutional changes; to increase capacity building in national environmental NGOs.

Based on the report findings and live discussion during the round-table the participants of the workshop worked out the recommendations for improving public participation in environmental policy making in Ukraine.