Newsletter – n°39 – January 2016

News from the Secretariat

A meeting of practitioners and project managers representing actors and stakeholders in the Eastern European Neighbourhood region was organised on 14 December 2015. The objective was to map complementarities and synergies between existing and planned activities in Ukraine, and to seek better coordination between all actors, donors and the beneficiaries.

What are the takeaways of this seminar?

• Participants stressed the importance of coordination and exchange of information between a multitude of small actors of decentralised cooperation not only at the national level (local governments associations) but also at the macro-regional level (Eastern Neighbourhood, Visegrád Group, Western Balkans).

• Many participants underlined the need for financial instruments suitable for city-to-city cooperation to be put in place, as most current instruments favour large-scale programmes and projects and are not easily accessible for individual local governments.

• Several participants reiterated the positive experience and impact of a structured transfer of know-how resulting from the LOGON project (1998-2005).

Under its partnership agreement with the European Commission (DG DEVCO-EuropeAid) PLATFORMA undertakes to ensure a role of coordination of decentralised cooperation actors.

In this regard, PLATFORMA will organise further events in the coming years in Georgia and Moldova to facilitate horizontal exchange of information between local governments and their associations of the three countries (Ukraine, Georgia, and Moldova).

For more information, please contact Boris Tonhauser, executive advisor at PLATFORMA.