2.7 The Barents Secretariat administration

requirements, transport costs and time constraints, as well as language problems. Other obstacles include differences in systems between the two countries affecting the projects, difficulties including partners from other countries (Finland/Sweden) without access to own funding, changes in project staff during the project implementation period, and others. When looking separately at responses made by Russian and Norwegian respondents, some important differences can be observed. Russians tend to stress bureaucratic obstacles in the local setting much more often than is the case with Norwegian respondents. This is hardly surprising since the projects are implemented in Russia and permissions are often needed from Russian authorities. Norwegians more often complain about problems of communication, low level of funding, and lack of human resources than is the case with Russian respondents. Other items have a more uniform distribution. For example, complaints of lack of commitment are equally likely to be directed towards people from own country as from the partners abroad.

Although applications are sent to the Barents Secretariat office in Kirkenes, the local offices have an important role in guiding the applicants before the submission of an application, and to follow up on the activities in the local setting. Nevertheless, of those who report contact with the staff of the Barents Secretariat, the office in Kirkenes is the one that the applicants have most contact with. Even a considerable proportion of Russian respondent have more contact with the Kirkenes office than any other offices, as shown in Table 2.7.

Table 2.7 Office with which the respondents have had most contact. Percent.

Office Kirkenes All respondents Russian respondents Norwegian respondents

n % n % n % 83 62 18 28 62 93

Murmansk 18 13 18 28 0 0

Arkhangelsk Narian Mar

11 8 10 16 1 2 2 2 2 3 0 0 Petrozavodsk 2 2 2 3 0 0 Don't know/hard to say 8 6 10 11 1 2 None of the above 10 8 7 11 3 5 Total 134 100 64 100 67 100

When asked about the frequency of contact with the Barents Secretariat offices, the majority (51%) of those answering this question3 reported such contact ‘a few times a year’, while 20% had such contact monthly or more often. The rest are distributed between ‘about once a year’ (14%), ‘more than once, but not every year’ (11%) and ‘only once’ (3%). This shows a fairly high frequency of contact with project members for the staff of the Secretariat, especially in Kirkenes. Country differences between the respondents are small. In fact Russians are overrepresented both among those who have most frequent (monthly) and the least frequent contact with the Secretariat staff. The Secretariat administration was evaluated by the survey respondents, in terms of the following aspects:

• Information about the funding opportunities and requirements • Accessibility of Secretariat staff • Application procedures • Level of funding • Level of bureaucracy in Secretariat • Flexibility of Secretariat staff

3 The 18 persons who answered ‘don’t know’ and the 7 persons who skipped the question are not included.

Only project leaders, who were thought to be the ones who were mostly in contact with the programme staff, were asked these questions. Those who were not sure (9-15% for each item) are excluded from the analysis. Figure 2.10 shows that the general impression of the administration of the Secretariat is very good. More than 80% of the respondents are at least ‘rather satisfied’ with all the aspects of the administration that were asked in the survey. Differences are discernable when we differentiate between ‘rather’ and ‘very’ satisfied, however. The funding level pleases the lowest proportion of respondents, and level of bureaucracy and information about funding opportunities and requirements are in an intermediate position, while close to 60% are very satisfied with flexibility and accessibility of project staff. The vast majority of the remaining respondents (who are not shown in the figure) answered ‘rather dissatisfied’ instead of ‘very dissatisfied’ (there was no neutral category); the latter category received at the most two responses, and for several items no one opted for this alternative.

Figure 2.10 Level of satisfaction with various aspects of the Barents Secretariat administration. Percentage of project leaders indicating ‘very satisfied’ or ‘rather satisfied’ to each item (n=59).

Flexibility of programme staff

Information about funding

Accessibility of staff

Level of bureaucracy

Application procedures

Level of funding

0 20 40 60 80 100 Very satisfied Rather satisfied