More than EUR 117 million out of the Norwegian Funds to support the development of cities

The international conference was the inauguration of the key stage of performance of the projects supported by the Norwegian Funds and EEA – 29 medium-sized cities received grants for the performance of complex projects aimed at the restriction of negative developmental phenomena and upgrading the living standard of the population.

Yesterday in Warsaw, on the first day of the international conference at which the start of the first milestone of implementing the projects of the Local Development Program financed by the Norwegian Funds and EEA was inaugurated. The contracts for the performance of the projects were signed in the period from November, 2021 to April, 2022.

At the conference, during panel discussions with active participation of Polish, Norwegian and Icelandic local government members, representatives of the program operator (MFiPR [Ministry of Funds and Regional Policy]), OECD and ZMP [Union of Polish Cities] consultants, the effects to date of implementing the projects in the cities have been presented, the benefits of the bilateral collaboration, methods of using the external OECD perspective have been presented.

Małgorzata Giela, the City Secretary, was one of the panelists who presented the progress of the works in Zabrze concerning the implementation of the OECD recommendations on the Institutional Development Policy included in the „Local Development” Program, co-funded from the Norwegian Financial Mechanism for the years 2014-2021 and from the State Budget. The topics presented included, without limitation, the development of the strategic management capacities and the relevant competences necessary as well as the coordination role in the local government unit.

The event was attended by the representatives of 29 Polish local governments selected in the competition and their Norwegian partners as well as the representatives of the donor state governments of the Norwegian Funds and EEA: Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway and the representatives of all the partner institutions committed into the performance of the Local Development Program.

The performance of the projects is a chance for every Polish beneficiary city to ensure concentrated support which as a result would allow or reverse some unfavourable developmental trends and contribute to better functioning of the city as an attractive place to live and work.

What is Local Development for?

There are areas in Poland that adapted to the global developmental trends to a greater extent and those subjected to increasing marginalisation, becoming more and more distant from the fast developing centres (this mainly refers to the smaller towns and medium-sized cities). The Local Development Program is aimed at the consolidation of the social and economic cohesion in our country through a better quality of the environment (the air quality in particular), economic and social development and upgrading the efficiency of local public administration and the living standard of the population of medium-sized cities and small towns.

This is an opportunity to ensure extensive and concentrated support to the cities, which in effect would restrict or reverse the unfavourable trends occurring therein and contribute to their better functioning as attractive places to live and work in.

The subject scope of the projects

The projects contain multi-aspect and complementary actions in numerous mutually correlated fields, in order to obtain the effect of synergy having an increased effect on the city development. As a minimum, the projects refer to the following dimensions: ecological, social, economic, institutional, and facultatively spatial, development funding, cultural or smart management.

Project funding

The funds for the development of Polish cities are from a special pool of grants awarded to more than a dozen of Central and Southern European and the Baltic States by Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein. In exchange the three countries have access to the internal European Union market, although they are not member-states.

Poland will benefit from the grants for the third time now. We will have EUR 809 million at our disposal for the years 2014-2021 (the implementation periods of the Norwegian and the EU funds do not converge). The contract for the Local Development Program is for EUR 117,6 million, of which 15%, i.e. EUR 17,6 million constitute the domestic country contribution.

The co-funding level of the project represents 100% of the qualifiable costs.

Selection of cities for support

255 medium-sized cities participated in the open recruitment. 54 cities passed to the next stage as decided by the Project Selection Committee. Originally 15 projects were to be selected for funding, however, the Project Selection Committee – in collaboration with the Operator and the donor-states – decided to extend the list on all the Complete Project Proposals that have met the requirement of scoring the minimum 60% of the points in the substantial assessment. The decision was most of all dictated by the need to support a larger group of cities than originally assumed, those which faced a difficult social- economic situation due to the pandemics of COVID-19. The extension of the ranking list allowed to increase the Program’s effect through the increase of the Program through significant increase of the range of cities that will perform new development paths.

The contracts for donations were duly executed by 29 cities.

foto: Ministerstwo Funduszy i Polityki Regionalnej