Since end-April 2009, when the deadline for grant awards expired, most of the 22 individual projects (IPs) in Bulgaria and 29 IPs in Romania have received advance payments in the region of 20-30% of the grant amounts. In most cases, that has enabled quick and intensive project starts with some promoters having already requested and received their first interim payments. To date, effective transfers to individual project accounts have reached encouraging levels of about 27% and 24% of the Bulgarian and Romanian IP grant allocations, respectively. All these figures would nevertheless mean little unless converted into touchable results on the ground.
12/11/2009
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In Romania, for instance, the findings of the project monitoring visit carried out last week in region 7 (Centre) by a joint Innovation Norway-Ministry of Public Finance team point to good progress in implementation and sensible hopes for successful project completion before April 2011. The Romanian Ministry of Health, through its Centre for Public Health in Sibiu, in partnership with the Norwegian Public Health Institute, has initiated work on nation-wide research, policy-making and awareness raising aimed at preventing obesity among children and teenagers. Working on a similarly three-fold project approach, the Regional Environmental Protection Agency Centre in Sibiu and the Association of Municipalities in Norway (KS) have just launched a region-wide waste management project that will also look into practical demonstration projects with focus on composting, construction waste and hazardous household waste in Medias and Saliste. Results in the rural area are equally visible with rehabilitation works having started on two milk collection centres in the Tarnava Mare area - a change for local farmers driven by Fundatia ADEPT in partnership with the Royal Norwegian Society for Development (Norges Vel). In Odorheiu Secuiesc, Fundatia CIVITAS has initiated local farmer mobilisation work in a local fruit festival and rehabilitation works on a rural consultancy centre. Elsewhere in the country work is in progress on a food traceability software (North-East), rural health mobile services in Bacau, an upgraded private plant for the production of medical devices in Iasi, new
private production plants in Ilfov and Miercurea-Ciuc, air research in several major public universities and research institutes in Timisoara, Iasi, Bucharest and Cluj, and a maritime business incubator in Constanta - to give only a few examples.
In Bulgaria, preparatory work for the establishment of a private plant for environmentally-friendly fire-fighting products in well under way. In an effort to bring ICT and ecotourism together, the
Devetaki Plateau Association have set up 9 information centres in the Devetaki Plateau region. In the same project, an interactive training session has been organised together with Friluftsrådenes Landsforbund (the Norwegian Association for Intermunicipal Outdoor Recreation), where 33 representatives of municipalities have been trained in the sustainable management of natural and cultural – historical resources. The Centre for the Study of Democracy and NUPI in Norway have initiated an intensive dialogue with the Bulgarian Government in order to support efforts aimed at changing the decision making process in the energy sector. A Policy Brief for Better Governance of the Sustainable Energy Sector in Bulgaria has been developed (
http://www.csd.bg/fileSrc.php?id=2866). The Association of Municipalities in Norway (KS) and the Union of the Bulgarian Black Sea local authorities have recently launched the project on transfer of knowledge and experience, as well as on the development of practical examples in Dobrich, Varna and Burgas, in connection with energy efficiency and renewable energy in public buildings. The Ministry of Environment and Water and the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) have also started work on a National Action Plan on Climate Change.
In its capacity as fund manager, Innovation Norway has covered the details of all of these projects and has been most impressed by the sense of ownership and dedication that all promoters and partners exude in their work. In an attempt to highlight the results of all the projects in the Norwegian Co-operation Programme and, above all, give credit to the people behind those results, project news will be posted regularly on this website.