120 NOK in their favour. They are victims of a conflict between local business interests in Finnmark. Although the project met its objectives of transferring meat processing skills to young people, there is a danger that the unfortunate non-payment of due salaries will be what the young people associate with Norwegian – Russian project co-operation. Continuation of the project activities. The project holder considers initiating another project. Discussion. If the project had been fully implemented, it could have contributed to the development of a stronger transborder business network in the field of reindeer husbandry. Although the project was conceived a primarily being to the benefit of Neiden Rein, among other because it aimed at creating a Russian market, there could have been positive effects on the Russian side too. Among others the project would have created a market for Russian reindeer meat to be sold to Norway, and the competence transfer could have made Russian reindeer industry more competitive. It is, however, not clear whether the project’s insistence on only working with Saamis involved in the reindeer branch, excluding Russians and Komis, is a correct strategy in the Russian context. It should also be taken as a lesson that project holders must be rock solid. The fact that Russian Saamis trained through the project left Norway with salaries outstanding is harmful to the trust and good relationship that the Barents Secretariat’s grant programme seeks to boost.
3.15
Lessons learnt
Ideally, all the individual projects are inputs to the overall objective of the Barents Secretariat’s grant programme , which is to create cross-regional trust and welfare. In the early years of the Barents co-operation cross-regional interaction in itself was highly valuable. Later, the project co-operation has become more focused on attaining particular goals set by the project holders. Although, as this chapter has shown, projects tend to be successful in reaching their own goals, there may be reason to discuss whether they contribute efficiently enough to the overall aims of the Barents cooperation. In particular, there is reason to watch out for the
NIBR Report 2008:4
