The Public Participation Campaign (PPC) is an environmental NGOs campaign to promote the existance of the Aarhus Convention, to involve environmental citizens organisations and general public in using the Convention to exercise our citizens right for access to information, participation in decision-making and access to justice on environmental matters and to be involved in implementation of the Aarhus Convention at the pan-European region.

The PPC unites more than 200 organisations in the East and West, North and South of the UN ECE region and aims at establishing the environmental democracy throughout the whole region.

The PPC has a long history of involvement with the Aarhus Convention, beginning with the development of the Guidelines on Access to Environmental Information and Public Participation in Environmental Decision-making (known as Sofia Guidelines) and the Convention itself in 1996. NGO representatives played an unprecedented role in the negotiations over the text, being seated around the table as observers at the UN but able to join in the debate on an ongoing basis. NGO interventions were principled, spirited, well-researched, co-ordinated and helped to strengthen the Convention. The PPC reports of those meetings can be read in the archive.

The text of the Convention and its rules of procedure recognise the role the NGOs played and set the basis for the continuation of this involvement. The Convention is unique in the UN context for having observership for NGOs institutionalised in its Bureau, for giving NGOs the right to nominate candidates for the Compliance Committee, and above all, giving citizens the right to address that Compliance Committee with complaints about non-compliance by Parties.

Over the years, the PPC has organised NGO conferences, workshops and strategic meetings and has maintained a web site and email discussion groups. The PARTICIPATE newsletter has been published since 1997. A number of  useful publications were produced aim to keep citizens and NGOs updated and contribute to an exchange of information. Participation in the official process has been backed up by position papers and declarations. A challenge is to achieve a sound representation of the different views and positions of our NGOs and special attention has been given to the participation of NGO representatives from those countries that encounter more difficulties or lack the tradition of actively taking part in such processes.

In order to organise the work of the PPC and provide and NGOs input into all official Aarhus Convention related meetings, the Public Participation Campaigns Committee (PPCC) was established . The PPCC is currently composed of 9 members, who are elected seeking a geographic balance and to be representative of the different ECOs particularly committed to contributing to public participation in the region. Members of the PPCC are elected at the ECOs Strategy meetings organised back to back with the Meetings of Parties to the Aarhus Convention.

John HONTELEZ, European Environmental Bureau - PPCC Chair
Fikret JAFAROV, For Sustainable Development Association, Azerbaijan (Caucasus)
Katerina PTACKOVA, Green Circle, Czech Republic
Neshat AZEMOVSKI, Biosfere Centre & Aarhus network, fYRo Macedonia (South-East Europe)
Olga SPERANSKAYA, Eco-Accord, Russia
Julien BETAILLE, Les Amis de la Terra, France (Western Europe)
Andriy ANDRUSEVICH, Resource and Analytical Centre Society and Environment, Ukraine (Eastern Europe
Svetlana MOGILYUK, ECO Forum, Kazakhstan (Central Asia)
Mara SILINA, European Environmental Bureau, PPC coordinator and editor of "PARTICIPATE" newsletter

If you or your organisation is interested in issues related to the Aarhus Convention and would like to join other environmental organisations in their work for an effective implementation of the Aarhus Convention, please contact This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .