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UNDP Launches Initiative to Strengthen Development Planning at Regional and Municipal Levels in Serbia

Geneva (06 November 2008) – The United Nations Development Programme launched a new initiative in Serbia to enable municipalities to draft regional developmental plans and to set up regional development agencies.  The project, part of an international cooperation initiative called ART (Articulating Territorial and Thematic Networks of Cooperation for Human Development) was designed in close cooperation between the national government, the UNDP country office, and a team from the Geneva-based HUB for Innovative Partnerships. The Art Programme supports national and local governments in the implementation of their national decentralization policies, and promotes the implementation of a legal, operational, administrative and planning framework.

Christophe Nuttall, director of UNDP's HUB for Innovative Partnerships, said Serbia is the 15th country to be included in the ART Gold programme.  “The ART Initiative promotes and supports the establishment of decentralized cooperation partnerships between regional and local communities from the North and South and South-South Cooperation partnerships for the development of specific initiatives. The new Serbia programme demonstrates that the same partnership principles can be applied among countries in Europe.”

Serbian Minister of Economy and Regional Development Mladjan Dinkic said the Italian government will allocate €1 million for financing the first phase of the project to be implemented in the Macva and Kolubara districts.  An additional €2 million will be raised from other partners.

The project is to enable municipalities to draft regional developmental plans and to set up regional development agencies, he said.

The Minister pointed out that the project will include 14 municipalities, out of which Krupanj and Mali Zvornik are considered the most underdeveloped ones, having an income 40 percent lower than average.

Dinkic said that only three of these municipalities, Valjevo, Sabac and Lajkovac have income levels comparable to the rest of the country. He added that the Macva and Kolubara districts will be considered one region in the future, which will enable their speedier networking with the European regions.

He also added that the Ministry completed the draft law on regional development, which will enter public discussion in the following 100 days.

According to Dinkic, the law should be adopted by spring next year and the most important novelty in the law will be Serbia’s classification in statistical regions according to the European statistical standards set by Eurostat.

This will facilitate economic cooperation with Europe, explained the Minister, adding that it is very important that Kolubara, Maceva and Zlatibor districts become one statistical region.

Dinkic said that this will make it easier to distribute the help arriving from abroad, because regions that are interlinked also support each other financially, which makes them better channels than central government.