FPA projects meeting at EU Delegation premises in Tirana

On 6th of May, TACSO office in Albania organized at EU Delegation premises in Tirana a meeting with representatives from the D3 Unit at DG Enlargement in Brussels Mr. Dario di BENEDETTO, representative from EU Delegation in Tirana Mr. Stefano CALABRETTA, members of the evaluation team of FPA projects Mrs. Anne Morton HYDE (for Albania and Kosovo) and Mr. Simon FOREST (for Macedonia and Turkey) and all the NGOs implementing an FPA project in Albania, to discuss the implementation so far of their projects.

The meeting started with a short presentation of what EU is doing regarding the FPA projects and how it is going to proceed for the next two years till 2016. They stated that EU is actually finalizing the guideline for the new call for proposal for the next two years, which will be restrict open only for the ongoing 18 FPA projects. Also, lately EU has engaged an evaluation team to monitor the so far implementation of the FPA projects. The team had started their monitoring round by travelling to all FPA countries to meet with almost all NGOs implementing the FPA projects to get a better understanding on their ongoing project implementation. Two of the evaluation team members joint this meeting, while explaining their mission and informed us that we will be contacted during their second round monitoring tour on 12th of June.

Then the representative of the D3 Unit at DG Enlargement pointed out some specific issues that all FPA projects should keep in mind, while applying for the next two year project, as: i) the budged will be reduced, probably 20% from the previous one, so CSOs should continue implementing those action which had more impact and cut the less ones; (ii) Very important issue is the extension of the partnership in all the IPA countries; (iii) and more sub-grantee schemes and capacity building instruments for the CSOs, as the FPA aim is to increase capacity building of CSOs in the region.

Then all 9 NGOs made a short presentation about their project implementation status so far.

2014-05-06 10.04.32