Browsing by Author "Goljakov, Kristina"

The main task of this thesis is to investigate the Finnish-Russian collaboration in the field of the environment, and more specifically, in the field of waste management. The history of Finnish-Russian cooperation goes back to more than one decade. This cooperation has always been influenced by the political situation in these two neighboring countries. The need for collaboration is also motivated by the necessity to solve mutual problems, such as can be seen in the field of environmental protection. However, since Finland's accession to the European Union, the relationship between these two countries has gained a new overtone. This study aims to answer to the main research question “What do the experiences gained in Finnish-Russian waste management projects reveal about the environmental cross-border cooperation between Finland and Russia?”, and to the sub-questions: “What are the benefits and/or opportunities project participants are searching for?” and “What kind of challenges can be found during project implementation?”. Such formulation of the research task enables to enrich comprehension of cross-border cooperation between Finland and Russia and its potential in the future. The analysis of particular case study promotes better understanding of how the CBC waste management projects work, what challenges can be met during the project implementation, and what risks should be accounted for in the future. In this research, the method used for data collection is questionnaire. This enabled to choose a particular approach for the analysis that was based on Miles and Huberman’s model of qualitative content analysis. The data consisted of replies from five respondents who were also actively involved in two different CBC waste management projects conducted under the framework of the Karelia CBC Programme. Their answers helped to evaluate and analyze the expected and unexpected issues that can be met during project implementation, as well as benefits these projects brought to the countries they represented. The results of this research demonstrated that the cooperation between Finland and Russia in environmental context can solve many problems, for instance, filling the funding gap by attracting the investments or increasing the environmental awareness through organized events. The main obstacles were met in the light of the ongoing pandemic situation which can cause drastic consequences for the further development of cross-border cooperation. The waste management issues are very topical and within this subject matter, there can be found huge opportunities for development for both Finland and Russia. However, the legal framework of the Russian waste management sector is still developing and that can cause challenges for the Finnish project participants. The main benefits that attract participants to the CBC waste management projects are opportunities for the exchange of expertise and direct investments.