The awareness seminar on IPA cross-border cooperation programmes for potential applicants of North-East Economic region of Bosnia and Herzegovina was held in hotel Tuzla. This seminar was jointly organized by the CBIB project, Agency for North–East Economic Region of Bosnia and Herzegovina (NERDA) and Directorate for European Integration of Bosnia and Herzegovina (DEI).

Different institutions (Municipalities, NGOs, and Chambers of Commerce, Tourist and Cultural institutions etc.) were invited and more than 120 representatives attended the seminar.

Objectives:

The objective of this awareness seminar was not only to familiarize the potential applicants in North-East Economic region of Bosnia and Herzegovina with cross-border programmes and the concept of the cross-border project but also to introduce them to the possibilities, opportunities and at the end benefits from the implementation of these programmes for them, their institutions/organizations and their region.

The awareness seminar was officially opened by Mr. Enes Drljevic, Director of the North–east Regional Development Agency (NERDA) and Mrs. Amra Jaganjac (Manager of Strategic department -NERDA) participated as a moderator.

Four presentations were made:

• Introduction to IPA and IPA Component II: Cross-border programmes 2007-2013 f Bosnia and Herzegovina – Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina – Serbia, presented by Branimir Gojkovic from Directorate for European Integration for Bosnia and Herzegovina;
• Regional project for Cross-border Institutional Building – CBIB and its activities in the Western Balkan region, presented by Haris Piknjac from CBIB Sarajevo office;
• What is a cross-border project (type of projects, type of partners, budget and eligible costs, call for proposal), presented by Maja Stojanovic from CBIB Belgrade office;
• NERDA and future activates presented by Mrs. Amra Jaganjac.

The presentations were followed by questions and answers.

Conclusions and lessons learned:

The organizers consider this event as a full success. The participants of the seminar showed great interest in the presented topics and most of them expressed interest to participate in future trainings and seminars. The great interests of the participants show that IPA CBC raises many expectations in the region. Information is in a high demand and it is certainly not too early to organize such events.