We breathe health if we let the forest breathe

The non-reimbursable grants from public funds represent a real opportunity for the beneficiary countries, to address specific problems of the vulnerable communities, for which the country policies haven’t yet succeed, in some situations, to establish concrete measures. Furthermore, the development of several projects in public-private partnerships allows, through the non-reimbursable grants for the support and improvement of the measures included in the national strategies for the control or eradication of some diseases or for the improvement of the life quality of some groups at risk of social exclusion.

Until now, in Romania, only in the fields of human resources, health, and human rights, the non-reimbursable public funds supported the development and piloting, at national level, of some infrastructure of services specific for the people affected by diseases difficult to cure or chronic (diagnosis, specialized interventions etc.), gave way to the implementation of some training programs for different professional categories, were the basis of several research programs and the development of studies in fields uncovered in Romania (such as autism) or allowed the development of some information campaigns addressed to the general population on different diseases, non-discrimination campaigns or advocacy campaigns to improve the existing legislation regarding the rights of the people with disabilities and those affected by TB, HIV/AIDS, etc.

The benefits of the European funding or those granted by the government of some European countries are priceless.

Maybe that is exactly why their management at national level and the reporting systems for the reimbursement of the expenditure might try to complete this balance that the external funding re-establishes in countries like Romania. The modern technology and the electronic systems of data storage allow today to replace the paper support with electronic support which is without any doubt equally ecologic and durable. More and more campaigns try nowadays to educate the population in the spirit of a proper use of electronic devices, avoiding hard storage of the information.

The current systems of reporting to the national management authorities for the international funding, related to expenditure reimbursement, is based largely on data presentation and storage on paper, leading to impressive quantities of files, ring-binders and paper sheets for each monthly report, for each project, everything in up to 3 copies for each document. Only for the project “Improving the Health Status of the Romanian Population in Romania by Increasing Tuberculosis Control”for the January – April 2015 reporting, the data storage needed 70 ring-binders, each having an average 400 A4 sheets of paper. Considering that each A4 sheet of paper weighs 5 grams (80 gr/sqm), after doing the math we conclude that only the content of 70 ring-binders, for one periodical reporting, weighs 140 kg of paper (without adding the weight of the ring-binders).

Of course, at a first glance the situation might create opportunities to access new financing lines for solutions to protect the forests and local ecosystem.

Nonetheless, at a more realistic assessment of the situation, there is a need to reconsider and change the reporting system (regarding data storage), with higher focus on using modern filing technology and information storage. No doubt, it’s a win-win situation, for the national management authorities, project implementers and general population who, although far away from these details, breathe the air which Romanian forests help to breath.

The change can come from the first decision maker who understands its benefits.