On April 2nd, 2008, in Municipal Hall in Niksic the fourth awareness seminar on IPA cross-border programmes with neighbouring Western Balkan countries that Montenegro participates in (Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Albania and Croatia) was organized.
This seminar was organized by the CBIB project in close cooperation with and support form the Secretariat of European Integration of the Government of Montenegro and Niksic municipality. Around 40 different institutions (municipalities, NGOs, associations, educational and cultural institutions etc.) were invited and in total 54 persons participated.

Objectives:

The seminar in Niksic was the last awareness seminar before the round of trainings for the potential applicants in Montenegro starts next month. The purpose of the awareness seminars was to prepare the potential applicants for the trainings by clarifying the basic concepts related to cross-border cooperation (IPA, cross-border programmes and projects). This would provide the basis for training sessions that will, hopefully, result in project preparation capacity building for the potential applicants and successful project proposals when the first Calls for Proposals are launched in autumn of 2008.

This seminar was officially opened by Ms. Dragana Vucurovic, Department of Economy and Finance of Municipality of Niksic, and Ms. Tijana Ljiljanic, Advisor in SEI who was also a moderator during the seminar.

Three presentations were made:

• Introduction to IPA and IPA Component II, presented by Mrs. Ratka Sekulovic, Assistant to the Head of the Secretariat for European integrations of Montenegro;
• Regional project Cross Border Institutional Building – CBIB and its activities in the Western Balkan region, presented by Ms. Marija Stevanovic from CBIB central office in Belgrade;
• What is a cross-border project (type of projects, type of partners, budget and eligible costs, call for proposal) presented by Ms. Marija Stevanovic from CBIB central office in Belgrade.

The presentations were followed by questions and answers.

Conclusions and Lessons Learned:

The seminar was considered to be a highly informative and successful event that achieved its objective. The participants showed great interest in the presented topics and raised many questions regarding the IPA cross-border programmes, project preparation and future trainings and seminars. Organization of the seminar, hospitality of the host institutions and clear contents of presentations contributed to raising awareness of the potential applicants in this region.