2004 Civil Society Development, Budget line:
BG: 2004/ 016-711.01.01
Project: “Mobilizing the resources for sustainable regional and local development in the context of EU integration”

THE PROJECT

Project: “Mobilizing the resources for sustainable regional and local development I the context of EU integration”

Contract number: CSDP 2004 – Lot 2 – 057

Contracting party: Ministry of Finance , Bulgaria – Central Finance and Contracts Unit

Financing programme: 2004 Civil Society Development, Budget line: BG: 2004/ 016- 711.01.01

Leading organization: Regional Municipalities Association “Maritza”

Overall objective:

Strengthening the capacity of the local stakeholders in the four smallest municipalities in the region – Simeonovgrad, Stambolovo, Madjarovo and Mineralni bani through improving their skills for effective utilizing the EU Structural funds and enhancing the interaction between the key actors at regional level.

Specific objectives:

  • To raise the knowledge about European Union and its institutions and policies;
  • To build skills for developing, planning, budgeting and reporting projects;
  • To raise the comprehension of the local stakeholders regarding to their role in utilizing EU Structural funds and Cohesion fund;
  • To improve the communication and coordination between regional authorities, municipalities and NGOs in developing and implementing projects, funded by EU;
  • To identify and develop key projects eligible under the Structural funds and operational programmes requirements.

Target groups :

  • 16 officials from the 4 target municipalities
  • representatives of the rest 7 municipalities-members of the Association
  • representatives of 8 local NGOs
  • 4 representatives of the regional authorities from Haskovo region and Kardzhali region

Main activities:

1 . Preparation:

  • Information meetings for project presentation
  • Selection of participants in the training process
  • Selection of experts
  • Contracting

2. Elaboration of materials for the training process:

  • “ EU Guide – policies and legal framework”
  • Handbook “ EU funds and projects”
  • Information manual “ Best practices – funding of local initiatives”

3. Strengthening the capacity of local stakeholders:

  • Training module with duration of 2 days and 16 participants
  • Practice course with duration of 3 days and 35 participants

4. Transparency and publicizing project activities:

  • Work with media
  • Development of editions for project publicizing
  • Internet site update
  • Other visibility actions

Expected results:

The situation of target groups/beneficiaries :

  1. improved capacity of the local stakeholders about the EU, EU institutions, Structural funds and Cohesion fund and built skills of the beneficiaries for project development, resour c e planning, budgeting and financial management of projects, monitoring;
  2. raised comprehension of the local stakeholders for their role in utilizing the EU Structural funds and Cohesion fund;
  3. improved communication and coordination between the regional authorities, the municipalities, NGOs for planning, developing and implementing EU projects;

The technical and management capacities of target groups :

  1. Built skills for networking, improved relations between the local stakeholders
  2. Raised capacity for EU project management
  3. Built skills in searching alternative sources for funding;
  4. Accumulated information for EU funds and requirements for funding projects.
This project is financed by the EU      This project is implemented by RMA”Maritza”        

This document is issued with EU financial support. RMA “Maritza” is responsible for the document’s contents and it can not be considered that this document presents the EU official statement.