NGOs have not had a happy recent history in Russia, facing some heavy-handed tactics by opponents. But slowly, their efforts are starting to change public and corporate attitudes
Anastasia Denisova understands all too well the obstacles faced by NGOs in Russia. In 2009, she headed an organisation working with ethnic minorities in southern Russia. After she endured arbitrary tax and bank investigations and a travel ban, local officials broke into her rented office, reportedly to search for counterfeited copies of software. The charge of “illegal use of non-licensed software” could have meant nine years in prison. In May 2010, the case was closed due to lack of evidence of any crime.
But Ethnics, her NGO, no longer exists. Denisova no longer lives in her native Krasnodar, but in Moscow, working for the Civic Association, which represents the rights of migrant workers and ethnic minorities.
“It was ruined,” she says of her organisation. “I was compelled to protect myself and not the target group I was charged with protecting. In Moscow it is safer to work with these issues.”
Denisova’s experience illustrates the harshness of a 2006 law that subjects Russian and foreign NGOs to excessive government scrutiny and imposes onerous reporting and audit requirements, which NGOs claim are intended to stifle them. Some restrictions were lifted in 2009, but it is still hard to register an NGO and those receiving funds from abroad attract particular attention. Many no longer exist.
While human rights organisations are most often in the government’s crosshairs, environmental groups also find it hard to operate. Some groups have resorted to registering as “thinktanks” or “foundations” to dodge the controversial NGO label.
The Russian Human Rights Resource Centre in Moscow has been operating a crisis line for NGOs since 2008. Lawyers for the group provide legal aid to NGOs. Director Maria Kanevskaya, says some 200,000 NGOs are registered in Russia, but in 2000, the figure was three times higher. Those that are active in practice number just 50,000, “not much for a country the size of Russia,” she says. “For human rights, there are a dozen, maybe 20 groups operating today.”
In this environment, it is hard to imagine any success stories for NGOs but in fact, there have been a few triumphs.
Jane Buchanan, senior researcher for Europe and Central Asia for Human Rights Watch, says: “Russia has a very vibrant human rights movement, a deep history of that kind of activism and it taps into issues that resonate with the public. They have been able to garner support and move issues forward.”
Elena Kobets, development director for the Bellona Foundation, an international environmental NGO based in Norway and active in Russia, agrees. “We see a changed attitude of citizens towards the environment, not just in the big cities but even grassroots groups in small villages have started to protest against environmental degradation,” she says. “You see a rising level of frustration. More and more citizens understand that they must struggle for their right to a good environment. They work more professionally, apply to the courts and sometimes they win. This is a good sign and shows the impact of NGOs. We are not yet on the level of groups in the US or UK, but you see positive signs.”
Notching up victories
In 2006, Bellona, Greenpeace-Russia, WWF-Russia, local citizens and others launched a campaign to prevent Russian state-owned oil pipeline company Transneft from building a trunk pipeline that would have come within 800 metres of Lake Baikal, a Unesco World Heritage site. The then Russian president, Vladimir Putin ordered the company to consider an alternative route 40km to the north to avoid ecological risks.,
Bellona has also been successful in preventing nuclear waste submarine disposal in northern Russia, even though its campaign led to the 1996 arrest of Alexander Nikitin, director of the Environmental Rights Centre Bellona, on charges of espionage, for which he spent 10 months in pre-trial detention. His full acquittal from the charges, according to Kobets, “is the only court case that an NGO has won from the KGB”.
Citizens and environmental groups also rallied in defence of Khimki Forest, a birch tree forest that is part of the so-called “green belt” around Moscow. An $8bn high-speed road has been proposed to go through the forest to connect Moscow and Saint Petersburg but the plan to cut down a large part of the forest incited major protests, which turned violent in July 2010. The following month, the Russian president, Dmitry Medvedev, ordered the construction to be halted. Work on the road has resumed, however, and protests continue.
Another hot spot for NGOs and citizens in Russia is the site of the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, a resort town by the Black Sea coast in far south-western Russia. Sochi is 50km from the Caucasus Mountains, a Unesco World Heritage site, home to a nature biosphere reserve, a national park, and rare and endangered species. Environmental campaigners claim the massive Olympics infrastructure is taking its toll. “A great deal of environmental damage is being done,” according to Kobets.
The United Nations Environmental Programme has said government impact assessments “did not take into account the cumulative … effects of the various projects on the ecosystems of the Sochi region and its population”.
The groups are once more trying to engage with the government and private builders, with some success.
Olympic-sized protest
“We have made serious improvements in the construction around the Winter Olympics in Sochi,” says Dr Evgeny Shvarts, director of Conservation Policy for WWF-Russia. But WWF and Greenpeace have suspended their cooperation as consultants for Olympstroi, the state-run constructor, in protest that jointly agreed decisions were never implemented by Russia. In practice, NGOs’ concerns were being ignored, Shvarts says. “But during last autumn there were some examples of joint efforts and mutual understanding between the state-owned company Resorts of North Caucasus and WWF Russia,” he adds. He says the cooperation might have had a lot to do with the reputational risks faced by French investors in the project.
While many of these cases represent battles only half-won or, as in the case of Khimki Forest, seemingly lost, NGOs in Russia are not about to give up the fight to prod both the government and the private sector towards greater responsibility.
WWF Russia has taken a different tack, emphasising the use of market-based mechanisms to force companies to uphold a higher degree of corporate social responsibility. It challenges Russian companies to implement international management standards and non-financial reporting and to participate in schemes such as the global Carbon Disclosure Project.
“We think it is important to work with softer tools such as sustainability and reporting as this is how we think we can have a greater impact on the corporate responsibility of Russian companies, particularly those in the oil and gas business,” says Evgeny Shvarts. “I believe all our efforts have some positive, step-by-step changes.”
Shvarts believes it is “naive” to think that large public protests against all-powerful oil and gas companies will have significant impact. “The Russian people are smart enough to know that 60% of the population depends on the redistribution of oil and gas revenue for their livelihoods. They put up with a certain amount of corruption to ensure that they continue to receive decent salaries and pensions.”
A Bellona Foundation report backed up this contention that poverty and socio-economic problems trump environmental and human rights concerns for most Russians. It cited a 2008 study that showed only 13% of the population of Russia calls environmental damage the most significant issue of modern society. In a list of the 25 most important problems of the modern age, Russian public opinion put environmental concern in 18th place.
With doubtful results from traditional protests, and a stifled NGO voice, it falls to independent business associations in Russia to push companies in the direction of corporate responsibility. Veteran activist Veronika Kabalina, formerly with mining company Norilsk Nickel and a member of the Russian Union of Entrepreneurs and Industrialists’ Council on Non-Financial Reporting, contends that the business associations have the greatest influence on responsibility practices in Russia.
She helped develop the union’s Social Charter of Russian Business, a code of responsible business practices aligned with the UN Global Compact guidelines.
“The CSR agenda is now part of the public debate,” says Kabalina. She says that alongside the efforts of her organisation, the Corporate Social Responsibility Center of Russia and the Russian Managers Association, among others, have been influential.
Shvarts sees a positive trend in the growing political pressure on the government from the economically successful middle class (about 25% of the population, mostly located in the large cities) who are increasingly supporting the agendas of environmental and human rights NGOs. This will inevitably impact companies, too.
“There is still a lot of work to be done,” says Ekaterina Vereshagina, vice-president of PRP Group , which organises the national CSR Forum. “Many companies consider CSR as something separate, not integrated with the company’s strategy. CSR becomes a PR instrument with no real business substance behind it. There are companies that think paying taxes and salaries make them extremely socially responsible and doesn’t require any additional efforts.”
The work of changing hearts and minds must, and will go on, Vereshagina adds. “Russian NGOs are playing a really big role in a slow and difficult process of mind transformation,” she says.
Amy Brown, based in Washington DC, has written sustainability and integrated annual reports for Novo Nordisk, Electrolux and Ericsson. She’s also written extensively for the International Herald Tribune on sustainability issues and was editorial consultant for the World Business Council for Sustainable Development’s 10th anniversary publication Walking the Talk.