On March 2013, ENV.net staff conducted a survey in Western Balkans and Turkey to assess training needs of environmental CSOs acting in these countries. It emerged the need of improving knowledge and skills on EU funding mechanisms and possible channels for CSOs to monitor the approximation process to EU environmental acquis.
For this reason, the ENV.net training programme started on March 2014, targeting CSOs (e.g. NGOs, youth organisations, academic institutions, community groups, environment networks/coalition and other type of non-profit organisations).

Last training session of this programme, titled “Environment in the European Union: Funding Mechanisms and Policy Processes” was held in Belgrade on 22nd -23rd of October 2014.
Overall aim of this course was to encourage environmental NGOs to be involved in the EU processes and become more competent while doing so. The course consisted of 2 modules delivered by ENV.net staff.

First module provided brief introductory information on EU and its main institutions, EU programming system and financial decisions. This enabled participants to be able to actively participating in calls for proposals launched by the European Commission and the EU Delegation for the financing of projects in Serbia.
Second module provided a general understanding of the EU environmental acquis and the channels NGOs can use for monitoring of EU approximation process.

Twenty people participated to this training session and demonstrated their appreciation on the course contents.

Below a summary of the evaluation made by participants:

Overall Results of the evaluation forms – scores
Note: scores are defined as follows: 4 – very good; 3 – good; 2 – fair; 1 – poor

• Evaluation of the course 3,79
• Evaluation of the organisation 3,61
• Evaluation of the relation course-daily work 3,39

• Achievement of the course objectives 3,78
• Quality of the lectures 3,89
• Quality of the exercises 3,82
• Balance lectures/exercises 3,78
• Time allocated for discussion and understanding the issues 3,50
• Role of trainer (Knowledge of the subject; facilitation and animation skills; clarity of presentation; accessibility/availability)  4,00

• Duration of the course 3,33
• General organisation (venue, accommodation,…) 3,89

After the course
• Knowledge of training contents (general knowledge, understanding of where and how to find information) 3,39
• Capability to apply these contents in my daily work 3,61
• Capability to adapt and to apply the contents to programming and design of future projects 3,29

Next ENV.net training session will be on 14th-15th November in Skopje, Republic of Macedonia. See the training calendar for additional information