PRESENTATIONS CAN BE DOWNLOADED HERE
(in Hungarian)

The opening workshop of the FAO-TCP Project was held on 28 April 2005 with the title "Support to the development of a strategy for territorial organization and sustainable land management in areas with high natural disaster risk". The organizers of the event were CELK Center on behalf of the Hungarian Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MoARD) together with the FAO Subregional Office in Budapest.

The FAO-TCP project focuses on the north-eastern edge of Hungary (Szabolcs Szatmár Bereg County), where high diversity of landscape, large variety of land use, multicultural farming, controlled water inundation and extensive herding are the key characteristics of land use and agriculture. Since the area is exposed to a high level of natural disaster risk, a change of the land use and cultivation seems indispensable. There is a particular need to harmonize the existing inconsistencies and conflicts of interest between current land use and water management.
Generally, not enough attention has been paid in the past to the rural livelihood strategies. The correlation and synergies between the different activities are low, the organizational deficiencies are significant. The project will assists the pilot county in strengthening existing strategies for sustainable land management as well as micro-regional planning in order to tackle the existing deficiencies. The project will closely involve the local people. In view of institutional support and planning, the principle of subsidiarity will be emphasized. The project will also collaborate with other ongoing programs and projects (e.g. SPARAD, NEAP, VTT, NDR, NRDP, EU LEADER), most of which follow an iterative planning and implementation strategy. The synergies and complementarity between the TCP and these projects will be stressed. The whole process will be implemented in accordance with national and EU polices.
The opening speech of the Workshop was delivered by Ms. Kadlecikova, the representative of the FAO Regional Office and Mr. Fülöp Benedek, the permanent State Secretary of MoARD. The project was presented by Ms. Zsuzsanna Flachner on behalf of FAO which was followed by remarks and recommendations for the implementation of the project by experts from MoARD and the representatives of the project area. A draft implementation plan was also presented after which the discussions continued in working groups where the main issues were the coordination of the tasks of the first 6 months and the setting up of a logical frame matrix (which comprises the indicators of particular parts) at a local and national level.

The most effective way of the project start-up is to start on the local level. Local experts are ready to make the first steps concerning micro-regional activities. It is important to make parallel strategic decisions on the national level. The principle of subsidiarity must prevail over every aspect of the project.