Annual Report 2011 | Implementation : geographic overview
Capacity Building Initiative and INTERACT ENPI). In 2010, the RCBI continued organising partner search forums and training for potential applicants and started providing assistance to beneficiaries. The RCBI project will run until the end of 2012. INTERACT ENPI continued to offer a platform where all ENPI CBC stakeholders are able to share experience and good practices. Technical meetings were organised on Infrastructure projects (Large Scale Projects), financial and audit issues as well as monitoring and evaluation.
the Mediterranean. Additional projects under the Eastern Partnership and the Black Sea Synergy Process are also supported. The inter–regional programmes Tempus IV and Erasmus Mundus II are part of a strategy for promoting education and training in partner countries. Tempus IV aims at modernising and reforming higher education systems and institutions in the partner countries, while Erasmus Mundus promotes student and staff mobility amongst participating institutions. From the 2009 call for proposals Tempus IV funded 64 projects for a total value of € 39.4 million. A total of 450 proposals were received. Of the 64 successful applications, 18 came from institutions in ENPI countries. The fourth call for proposals for Erasmus Mundus launched in 2010 for the academic year 2010–2011 resulted in a total of 1880 exchanges of students and teaching staff, with the majority coming from ENPI countries.
Monitoring EU assistance projects are subject to external and independent results–oriented monitoring (ROM) in addition to the regular and rigorous project monitoring carried out by EU delegations. The ROM results in 2010 confirm that most cooperation projects in the ENPI region are effective. Projects monitored more than once show a marked improvement over time, suggesting that re–monitoring is a useful tool for getting better results. As in earlier years, projects with serious deficiencies in relation to one or more of the ROM criteria were the object of particular attention and follow–up scrutiny.
Cross–border cooperation overview Cross–border cooperation programmes are another ENPI tool to enhance cooperation between EU Member States and partner countries situated at the external border of the European Union. Since 2009, 13 programmes are operational. Financing agreements were signed with all partner countries with the exception of Morocco for the Mediterranean Sea Basin programme and Russia and Azerbaijan for the Black Sea Basin programme. Programmes seek to develop the cross–border economic, social and environmental potential of participating countries or to improve the standard of living and welfare of their citizens. Other priorities aim at people– to–people cooperation in the social, educational, cultural and scientific sectors.
Overall 372 projects (304 bilateral projects, 68 multi– country projects) with a total value of € 1.13 billion were monitored. The positive ROM results from the previous years for the region were confirmed by a satisfactory overall average score of 2.84 (out of 4), marking a slight improvement on the 2009 score (2.82).
The main challenge in 2010 was to finalise the first calls for proposals launched by all the programmes and to start project implementation. Together, the 13 programmes received 2 173 applications for a total available budget of € 239.2 million, illustrating the big interest among applicants for this type of cooperation. Partner countries are lead applicants in 520 projects representing 26 % of the total number of applications. In addition to standard projects, large scale cross–border investment projects of strategic importance are supported. Eight ENPI CBC programmes have decided to implement large–scale projects. To date, 13 investment projects have been submitted for approval to the Commission for a total of € 63 million.
The majority of monitored operations (70 %) were in the social infrastructure and services and economic infrastructure and services sectors. Both sectors showed a good overall performance. The productive sector (agriculture, industry, etc.) score, although lower, is also still generally satisfactory. The cross–cutting/multi–sector areas performed least well. These include the majority of multi–country/regional programmes, which on average tend to score lower than bilateral projects, due to
The EU provides technical support to the ENPI CBC programmes by financing two projects (Regional
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How cross–border cooperation reduces infant mortality and infant disabilities The high level of infant mortality in the first year of life and of infants with disabilities is a major health problem for Hungary and Ukraine. The ENPI CBC Hungary–Slovakia–Romania–Ukraine Programme is implementing a project called the ‘European Cradle’, worth € 500 000 to fight infant mortality in Hungary andUkraine. The project aims to improve diagnostic techniques and staff qualification in children’s hospitals. It seeks to increase the number of infants who recover after hospital treatment, to reduce postnatal infectious diseases and to lower the percentage of infant birth traumas through institutional and people–to–people cooperation. The regional children’s hospitals will create communication channels between Hungarian and Ukrainian target groups on modern methods of medical treatment that should lead to the introduction of new Ukrainian– Hungarian initiatives on health care.