BULGARIAN MUNICIPALITIES COMPETENT PARTICIPANTS IN THE UTILIZATION OF EU FUNDS PROJECT
Implemented with the Financial Support of the Open Society Foundation - Sofia
1. Brief project summary
The project aims at improving the absorption capacity of municipalities in the process of utilization of pre-accession and structural EU funds, through strengthening the professional skills and knowledge of municipal officials. Long-term module training related to the establishment of a municipal development policy, as well as the pre-accession EU financial instruments have been developed and schedules within the project framework. Through these activities will be enhanced the dissemination of successful know-how and experience of other European countries and will stabilized the potential of two regional associations of municipalities to provide expert assistance to their members. The main beneficiaries under the project are municipal and regional experts, representatives of regional associations and municipalities and the Committee for Economic and Social Cohesion (CESC) of North-East Planning Region.
2. Description of the concept
Together with the implementation of the public administration reform in the Republic of Bulgaria, the public administration has to face a challenge of a future membership in the European Union and also the requirements for effective cooperation with European institutions and administrations of the member states. A key element for the implementation of an effective and up-to-date policy for management and development of human resources in public administration would be the establishment of a system for constant development of professional skills and for improvement of qualifications of officials in the administration at national, regional and local levels.
Considering the significant importance of this element of the country preparation to become EU member, the Government adopted a Strategy for the Participation of the Republic of Bulgaria in the EU Structural Funds and the Cohesion Fund. In this document has been defined the overall concept of the Bulgarian government regarding the establishment and organizational sustainability of institutions that will implement planning, managing, monitoring and control of the funds provided to Bulgaria by the pre-accession and structural EU funds. The successful functioning of administrative structures for management of pre-accession and structural funds in state administration at central, regional and local levels is a critical factor for the success of the country during the transition period.
Each training module under the project will continue two days and a half, and will be held outside the working environment and within the North-East Planning Region. There will be three training target groups under this project. The training cycle of each group will last for 6 months. During the first four months one module in a month will be held. During the next two months the trainees will have the opportunity to receive consultancy assistance on behalf of the experts - trainers in the course of the preparation of municipal and inter-municipal projects. As a result of the project implementation training and practical assistance will be provided for 105 people, representatives of local administrations from approximately 50 municipalities and representatives of regional centres in the North-East Planning region.
Considering that the project will be also focused on delivering a successful experience of local authorities from other European countries in the pre-accession process, and the final event at the end of all training courses will be a closing conference, which will deliver a forum of successful municipal practices participants in the project realization.
50 medium-sized and small municipalities from the North-East Planning Region and municipalities members of the RAM Trakia , representatives of the RAM Trakia team, representatives of the Association for Trans-Border Cooperation and Development The Danube Dobrudzha and the Chairman and members of the Committee in Economic and Social Cohesion for the North-East Planning Region will be involved in this project.
The representatives of regional associations of municipalities who will take part in the long-term training modules will improve their expert qualification and after the end of the project they will have a better expert capacity to deliver consultations and provide technical cooperation to all member municipalities.