29 and others involved in cultural work. It should be noticed that it is easier for the Norwegian side to be flexible in the granting of money and do it on a short notice. The financing system is much more flexible on the Norwegian side since the MFA allocates funds that can be used for general purposes. There is no big need or relevance of charity actions from Norwegian groups any more and their – most probably unintended – paternalistic patterns of co-operation that went contrary to the core ideas of the Barents Secretariat’s grant programme .
1.10
Assessment
The Barents Secretariat’s grant programme ’s niche is regionally initiated projects. The initiatives and project proposals may come from the Norwegian or the Russian regions of the BEAR, and activities can take in Russia and/or Norway. Another special feature of this grant programme is its readiness to fund small-scale projects, often with a people-to-people character. Both when it comes to the types of projects and their subject matter, there is great variation. The aim of the project funding is to boost RussianNorwegian cross-regional interaction in order to create trust and welfare. The mechanisms that assumedly are set in motion through the project activities are more likely to function today than in the 1990’s. Today Russian and Norwegian partners meet on much more equal terms than earlier, and this encourages the reciprocal interaction that forms a core element in the underlying programme theory of the Barents co-operation. As a result of the improved private and public economy in Russia, it is reasonable to require a larger share of Russian financing. The Russian side already contributes considerably more than before. However, the budgetary system in Russia is less flexible than the one which applies for the Norwegian MFA’s funding of project activities. Sometimes, therefore, there is a long way to go for untraditional and innovative projects to get funds from relevant Russian authorities, while there is a considerably faster track to obtain Norwegian funds. In other words, there could be a possible
NIBR Report 2008:4
