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CEE Bankwatch Network is an international non-governmental organisation (NGO) with member organisations from 12 countries across CEE region. It monitors the activities of the international financial institutions (IFIs) which operate in the region, and proposes constructive alternatives to their policies and projects.

CEE Bankwatch Network was formally set up in 1995 and has become one of the strongest networks of environmental NGOs in central and eastern Europe. Members of CEE Bankwatch Network are NGOs from Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Estonia, Georgia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Poland, Serbia, Slovak Republic and Ukraine.

Bankwatch is working to prevent negative environmental and social impacts of IFI projects, and promotes public participation and access to information about IFI activities across the region.

Legal form
Platform – collective of organisations
Objectives

– Create public awareness about the activities of international financial institutions (IFIs) in central and eastern Europe and their social and environmental impacts.
– Promote public participation in the decision making process about the policies and projects of the IFIs, at the local, national and regional levels.
– Help non-governmental environmental organisations and citizen groups to monitor what the IFIs are doing in central and eastern Europe.
– Change – or stop – the environmentally and socially destructive policies and projects of IFIs in central and eastern Europe, and promote alternatives.
– Cooperate with environmental citizen organisations in order to stop the destructive activities of transnational corporations, and to limit their overall impacts on the environment in central and eastern Europe.

Main Activities

– Collecting and disseminating information about the activities of International Finance Institutions within the region, including a regular newsletter in each of the ten participating countries about what these institutions are doing.
– Building the capacity of national non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to participate in environmental decision-making, including training, joint analysis of projects, and joint publication of analytical materials about the International Finance Institutions.
– Developing cooperative working relationships among Central and Eastern European environmental activists, while utilizing western experience about International Finance Institutions.
– Preparing case studies of International Finance Institutions-funded projects, critics of their policies, and proposals for more sustainable alternatives.
– Undertaking advocacy activities vis-à-vis several International Finance Institutions, particularly in the areas of transportation, energy and forestry. Members of the CEE Bankwatch Network attend the annual meetings of the IFIs and are engaged in an ongoing critical dialogue with their staffs and Executive Directors at national, regional and international levels.
– Some IFIs monitored by Bankwatch: European Investment Bank (EIB), European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), The World Bank Group (WB), International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), International Finance Corporation (IFC), Asian Development Bank (ADB), European Union (Structural Funds, Cohesion Fund, pre-accession funds).

Strengths

– Monitoring of the IFIs in a ecologically, socially and economically sensitive european region.
– The environmental concerns are linked with social and economic justice.
– A network implanted in 12 countries of the Central en Eastern Europe.