At the European PROGRES Steering Committee (PSC) meeting held today in Aleksinac, the criteria were adopted for a total support of 200,000 EUR to clusters for introducing innovations. PSC also approved the criteria for support to local self-governments to develop technical documentation for social and economic infrastructure projects. Approximately 1.78 million EUR was allocated for this purpose.
PSC also approved the project proposal for institutional capacity building of local gender equality mechanisms and support to municipalities in gender mainstreaming, which will be implemented by the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN Women).
Programme progress since May this year, when the implementation of European PROGRES started, was also presented at the meeting. During the first four months Programme relevance was confirmed in view of national reforms and the needs of supported municipalities, Programme management structure was established and initial set of activities prepared.
“European PROGRES is a new opportunity for all of us: to create more favourable investment climate and business development; to strengthen the base for infrastructure development; to help you adopt some of the global practices in project management”, Richard Masa, representative of Sector 3 Operations of the Delegation of the European Union to the Republic of Seerbia (DEU) said.
The meeting was attended by the representatives of the ministries, municipalities participating in the implementation of the European PROGRES, representatives of development agencies and projects, civil society and donors – European Union and Swiss Government.
“The advantage of the European PROGRES is its regional approach to implementation that enables exchange of experiences and good practices between the municipalities. This approach will allow the municipalities to achieve more on every plan together than they would do individually,” Isabel Perich, Director of the Swiss Cooperation Office in Serbia, said.
Activities of the European PROGRES, programme that contributes to sustainable development of the South and South West Serbia will be supported by the European Union and Swiss Government with a total of 24.46 million EUR. Approved projects will aim to strengthen the local administration, create favourable environment for the development of infrastructure and economy, as well to improve the implementation of social inclusion and employment policies.
Municipalities covered by the Programme are Novi Pazar, Ivanjica, Nova Varoš, Priboj, Prijepolje, Raška, Sjenica and Tutin in South West Serbia and Prokuplje, Blace, Žitorađa, Kuršumlija, Leskovac, Bojnik, Vlasotince, Lebane, Medveđa, Crna Trava, Vranje, Bosilegrad, Bujanovac, Vladičin Han, Preševo, Surdulica, Trgovište, Brus, Aleksinac, Gadžin Han, Doljevac, Merošina, Svrljig, Babušnica, Bela Palanka and Knjaževac in South East Serbia.
