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Ecologic is analysing major public expenditure programmes to support environmental infrastructure investments in water supply and wastewater management in different OECD countries of the European Union. Following their evaluation, "lessons learned" for OECD non-member countries will be drawn up. All results will be published in a study.

Environmental infrastructure investments

Because of strained public budgets, many countries are now under pressure to allocate subsidies carefully and to verify their cost-effectiveness. This issue effects the financing of environmental infrastructure investments in the water supply and wastewater management sector, which has traditionally been state-run. In the distribution of these allowances, the goal is normally to simultaneously allow for a reasonable supply of infrastructure while promoting better environmental quality.

Lessons learned for Economies in Transition

Most of the economies currently in transition (here, CEE, EECCA and SEE countries) have to undertake serious efforts to build sufficient environmental infrastructure, as they mostly lie under the constraint of very limited financial resources. Thus, "lessons learned" from developed European countries could prove to be helpful for the implementation of new public environmental expenditure programs or the revision of already existing programs.

Against this background, the OECD has assigned Ecologic the task  to analyse major public expenditure programs in the water supply and wastewater management sector in Austria, Belgium, France and Germany, and to evaluate their performance. In different case studies Ecologic will illustrate the:

• historical development of subsidy distribution,
• institutional arrangements,
• questions concerning the program management.

"Lessons learned" will be drawn up through the "Good Practices of Public Environmental Expenditure Management" (PEEM) framework of the OECD, whose main objectives are environmental effectiveness, fiscal prudence and management efficiency.

Ecologic experts are currently editing the "Study on Mechanisms for Managing Public Environmental Expenditures in Selected OECD Countries", which is scheduled to be finished in June 2004.