Finland

Situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe

Bordered by Sweden to the west, Norway to the north, Russian to the east and Estonia to the south.

As of 2013 – population around 5.5 million

*majority concentrated in its southern region

EDUCATION

• Child day care, pre-school education and play club activities

• Basic Education

• Upper Secondary School Education

• Vocational Basic Education

• Universities of Applied Sciences

• University Education

• Adult Education

• Vocational Apprenticeship Training

EDUCATION

• Training Guarantee- every youngster who completes

comprehensive school should have the opportunity to get further education

- The Finnish Ministry of Education and Culture aims to achieve this for 96% of all youngsters who complete basic education

• VaSkooli pilot project- was implemented in two regions inSouth-West Finland, Turku and Salo, from 2004 to 2008- The Training Guarantee Model they developed is based on providing multi-disciplinary guidance and support, offering flexible cooperation in working life, ensuring an adequate number of student places, supporting parental responsibility and increasing the life management and work experience of the students.

• Lessons learned in the pilot project:- Communication and information transfer between basic and furthereducation require attention- There is a need for more cooperation between different schoollevels, youth organisations, employment offices etc.- Guidance should be easily accessible to all and should also bedeveloped further- New guidance, support and other operational models should bedeveloped and implemented in basic and further education- We need enough student places and must manage them well- New operational models are required- Cooperation is required for the transition from school to work

• Results of VaSkooli:1. More young people are moving on to secondary-level vocational education• The training guarantee rate in Turku and Salo regions went up from 93.9 % in 2004 to 95.1 % in 2006• The overall dropout rate at Turku Vocational Institute, one of the biggest training institutions in Finland to provide secondary-level vocational education with over 4,000 students, decreased from 4.7 % in 2004 (and almost 10 % in the early 2000s) to 2.8 % in 20082. Good practices for education and guidance• New guidance, support and education models• Low-threshold counselling and follow-up guidance• New models for communication, cooperation and transfer of information3. Less social exclusion among young people4. Reduced social costs5. Increased competent and motivated labour force in Finland

WASTE

• Inspired by the Sustainability 2017 Vision, Johnson Matthey Finland has taken on the goal of achieving zero waste to landfill and has – very nearly – met that target some six years ahead of the deadline, thanks to a series of well executed strategies.

• Waste was defined in ten separate categories, including solid hazardous waste, paper, packaging material, burnable waste, organic waste solvent, waste water, glass and metal ware

• The amount of waste in each category was set out and an end use described. This helped clarify best practice – sometimes already in place – and identified the need to find the right partner for waste disposal in certain categories.

• Plastic materials (such as bags and cisterns), wood based waste, disposable dishes and paper towels are all sent for incineration, using the leading Finnish provider of recycling services. Most of this waste is used to provide energy for the city of Turku, where Johnson Matthey Finland has its site.

• A project was set up to reduce the amount of hazardous liquid waste generated and as part of this, the site has substituted a C6 hydrocarbon with aqueous ethanol – offering health and safety benefits, as well as financial savings. In other categories of waste, wooden pallets and shipping materials, such as bubble wrap or plastic chips, are reused if they are non-contaminated. Printing cartridges are returned to the manufacturer for refilling, and scrap metal and glass are sent for recycling.

• The site’s ‘return, reduce, reuse and recycle’ activities mean that only 0.01% of waste now goes to landfill. Projects are planned to tackle the outstanding waste – which includes vials made of glass and metal, used in chemical analysis – and improve current practice, such as recycling more of the plastic.

• The environmental benefits are impressive. Burnable waste becomes energy; recycling saves on the use of freshly produced raw material; and the avoidance of landfill helps reduce methane emissions (in Finland 3% of greenhouse gases originate from landfill). Finally, there are financial gains all round, not least because sending waste to landfill costs 15% more than sorting it and reusing it

Climate

• Climate change is expected to have significant impacts on societies and ecosystems around the globe.

• The best way to minimize adverse impacts is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. However, global warming will continue and mitigation efforts start to affect the speed of warming only in the last part of the century.

• Therefore, it is also essential to adapt to climate change.

• Finland is one of the European forerunners in mainstreaming adaptation strategy.

• The implementation of the National Strategy for Adaptation to Climate Change has been taking place since 2005 when the strategy was released.

• The objective of the strategy is to reinforce the adaptive capacity of the society and minimize the adverse impacts of climate change, but also when appropriate to take advantage of its benefits.

• Priorities identified for increasing adaptation capacities include

(i) mainstreaming climate change impacts into sectoral policies;

(ii) targeting long-term investments; (iii) coping with extreme weather events;(iv) improving monitoring systems; (v) Strengthening research and development and (vi) internationalcooperation.

• The implementation of the strategy has been evaluated. According to it the adaptation measures are most advanced in water resources and flood risk management and in agriculture and forestry.

• Detailed action plans are made in environmental administration considering e.g. spatial planning, construction and ecosystem services.

• Mainstreaming is gradually extending into regional and local level adaptation and even into institutional action plans.

CLIMATE

• In northern countries the temperature is projected to increase more than the global average;

• in Finland the expected temperature increase varies between 1.5 to 7 °C by the end of the century, depending on the emission scenarios.

• Precipitation is also expected in increase in future. These changes are projected to be bigger in winter than in summer.

• In addition to the gradual changes in the average climate conditions more frequent extreme weather events are expected to cause serious problems to the society and have a tremendous impact on ecosystems and the utilisation of natural sources.

WATER

• The Community Development Fund (CDF), a funding mechanism developed in the Finnish-Ethiopian bilateral Rural Water Supply and Environmental Programme in Amhara Region, has achieved great speed and efficiency of construction as well as sustainability of community-managed water and sanitation facilities.

• Unlike direct community support in the traditional sense, the CDF grant is disbursed through a local microfinance institution, against an application and plan by communities supported by district water teams.

• The Finnish-Ethiopian bilateral Rural Water Supply and Environment Programme (RWSEP), has facilitated community-driven construction of small-scale rural water and sanitation infrastructure in Ethiopia since 1994, having so far served more than 1,2 million Ethiopians.

• lesson drawn is that speed and cost-efficiency of construction have increased significantly since the 2003 introduction of an innovative fund flow mechanism, the Community Development Fund (CDF).

• With CDF, communities themselves are responsible for planning, implementation and maintenance of communal water points, while the government’s role is limited to administration, facilitation and training.

• The grant is channelled to communities via a local Micro- Credit Institution known as the Amhara Credits and Savings Institute (ACSI).

• The system replaces the conventional local government development project funding mechanisms, where funding is channelled through a government organisation

• The minimum community contribution requirement is 15% of the total investment cost, consisting of both cash and in-kind contributions. A set minimum is collected as an up-front cash contribution from each household, deposited into a savings account in ACSI to cover operation and maintenance (O&M) costs.

• The communities, through elected Water, Sanitation and Hygiene Committees (watsancos) are fully responsible for the funds allocated to them during the construction phase, including procurement of materials, equipment, construction tools and constructionservices.

• Finland is a long-term partner of Vietnam in water sector reform. The cooperation between Vietnam and Finland in the water sector dates back to 1985.

• In the beginning, Finland provided conventional investment-oriented support to relieve acute problems. Over the years, the cooperation has been diversified and deepened to tackle the root causes of the low level of water supply and sanitation, and Finland has taken on a broader role in the water sector reform in Vietnam.

SUSTAINABILITY

• The National Strategy for Sustainable Development is assessed every two years, and it is linked to the European Union’s assessment process. First evaluation was conducted in 2007.

• The success and progress of sustainable development is monitored by means of sustainable development indicators which are developed and updated by the national indicator network in cooperation with the FNCSD

• Finland is also engaged in a development project for the assessment of sustainable development impacts. The aim is to develop a tool with which the administrative sectors can assess the social, economicand environmental impacts of sustainable development objectives and gain an under-standing of how the diversity and long-term aims of sustainable development challenges can best be taken into account in planning.

• Energy efficiency has long been on the agenda. Natural resource and material use arouse interest whenever there are price fluctuations or fear that in the near future some of the reserves will be depleted. Besides the availability, there are tworeasons why we should focus on material efficiency: money and climate.

Transport The extensive road system is utilized by most internal cargo and passenger traffic.

As of 2010, the country's network of main roads has a total length of around 78,162 kilometres (48,568 mi) and all public roads 104,161 kilometres (64,723 mi).

The motorway network totals 779 kilometres (484 mi) with additional 124 kilometres (77 mi) reserved only for motor traffic.

• Despite low population density, taxpayers spend annually around 350 million euro in maintaining 5,865 kilometres (3,644 mi) railway tracks even to many rural towns.

• Operations are privatized and currently the only operator is the state-owned VR.  Helsinki has an urban rail network.

Railways systemsPassenger trains are operated by the state-owned VR Group. serve all the major cities and many rural areas, complemented by bus connections where needed.

Most passenger train services originate or terminate at Helsinki Central railway station, and a large proportion of the passenger rail network radiates out of Helsinki.

• High-speed Pendolino services are operated from Helsinki to other major cities like Tampere and Turku.

• Modern InterCity services complement the Pendolino network, and cheaper and older long and short distance trains operate in areas with fewer passengers

• The Helsinki area has three urban rail systems: a tramway, a metro, and a commuter rail system. Light rail systems are currently being planned for Turku and Tampere, two of the country's other major urban centres

Trams and Light RailIn Finland there have been three cities with

trams: Helsinki, Turku and Viipuri. Only Helsinki has retained its tramway network. The Vyborg tramway network ceased operations in 1957, after the city had been ceded to the Soviet Union, while the Turku tramway network shut down in 1972.

As of 2010, Turku and Tampere have preliminary plans for new tram systems, but no decision to build them has been made.

Helsinki currently operates 12 tramlines on a network of approximately 90 kilometres (56 mi) of track in passenger service

Air transportThere are 148 airfields, 76 of which have paved runways. 21 airports are served by scheduled passenger flights. By far the largest airport is Helsinki-Vantaa Airport, and the second largest by passenger volume is Oulu Airport. The larger airports are managed by the state-owned Finavia (formerly the Finnish Civil Aviation Administration). Finnair, Flybe Nordic and Norwegian Air Shuttle are the main carriers for domestic flights.

Water transport

Frequent ferry service connects Finland with Estonia and Sweden. Baltic cruise liners regularly call on the port of Helsinki as well. In domestic service, ferries connect Finland's islands with the mainland. Finland's cargo ports move freight both for Finland's own needs and for transshipment to Russia.

Economy Finland was a relatively latecomer to industrialization, remaining a largely agrarian country until 1950s.

Now has a highly industrialized mixed economy with a per capita output equal to that of other European economies such as France, German and UK.

GNP per capita was around 31,700 euros (2006).Currency: The Finnish currency unit is the euro.Finland was one of the 12 EU (European Union) countries that started using euro cash in 2002.

services66%

manu-facturing

31%

primary production3%

Sector of economy in Finland

Finland has timber and several mineral and freshwater resources.

Forests play a key role in the country economy, making it one of the world’s leading wood procedures and providing raw materials at competitive prices for the crucial wood-processing industries.

Finland also highly integrated in the global economy and international trade is a third of GDP (gross domestic product)