Potential Applicant Training

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Date

Oct 07 2008 - May 05 2016

Potential Applicant Training

The third training for Potential Applicants of IPA CBC Programmes among Western Balkan countries organized in Albania by CBIB Team in close cooperation with the Albanian Ministry of European Integration and Regional Council of Shkodra, took place on 7th and 8th October 2008, in Shkodra.

Participants and objective:

There were 21 participants coming from various backgrounds: representing municipality, commune, prefecture, regional council (persons involved in the CBC and potential applicants), coordinators of activities at local level, various NGOs, associations. This event was covered by the local media.

Most of trainees plan to be directly involved in the preparation of grant proposals and some of them have had experience in the preparation of projects based on EC procedures.

The main objectives of the course:

  • Potential grant beneficiaries have a general understanding on the cross-border programme implementation: what is Call for Proposals (CfP) and the role of the Guidelines for Applicants (GfA) in the CfP.
  • Understand what is required from the applicants in the Application Package.
  • Understand what is important in preparing for the application process and what CBC partnership is.
  • Understand the principles of the logical framework approach and the linkages between the different levels in the LFA.
  • Understand what role external factors in the LFA have.
  • Understand what role indicators in the LFA have and are aware how to formulate them.
  • Understand the principles of the activity based budgeting.
  • Understand how to fill in the Application form

Course flow:

The training was delivered by Mr. Genci Pasko, CBIB local short term expert and the representative from the Albanian Ministry of European Integration, Ms. Albana Hana, Coordinator of CBC Programs. CBIB Tirana office representatives also attended the training.

The opening speech was given by Ms. Albana Hana, making an overview of the programmes, the achievements and the role and involvement of MEI in the process. She gave the floor to Mr. Gjovalin Kolombi, Head of the Regional Council of Shkodra who welcomed the participants and briefly explained the need for such training and the priorities that need to be reflected in projects proposals. Shkodra already has a very good experience with other CBC programmes, but this is the first time that this region is facing the cross-border cooperation with its Western Balkan neighbours.

The training was consisted of the following sessions under the Preparation of the Grant Proposal:

  • Introduction and opening by CBIB
  • Introduction to IPA and CBC, CfP cycle, grant, guidelines for applicants
  • Why it is important to start preparing for CfP as soon as possible and what is CBC partnership?
  • Introduction to Logical Framework Approach
  • Stakeholder Analysis
  • Problem analysis
  • Intervention Logic
  • External Factors/Indicators
  • Activity-based budgeting
  • Application Form/Package
  • How to link the information of 2 days with the application form

Each day consisted of morning and afternoon sessions that were introduced in combination of theory with exercises/“learning by doing”, and due to the relatively short duration of the training, most of the topics were presented in plenary sessions and followed by “buzzing” – group discussions. Group exercises were organised on the following topics: stakeholder analysis, problem, and objective analysis.

The training was interactive and involved all the participants. Concrete success stories were taken from projects that have received the highest scores from the EC Delegation in Tirana, so as to make the training as practical as possible.

The participants expressed that the training helped them to have an overview of the necessary steps, the issues of concerns, and hints to overcome difficulties, but this made them more aware of the need to have other trainings as well.

The presence of the representative of the Ministry of European Integration made the training more practical and open sessions of questions and answers were organised which were highly helpful for the participants.

Also, CBIB team has developed a Manual for potential grant beneficiaries. The Manual presents an additional tool to the potential applicants since it consists of a detailed information on grant preparation process, logical framework approach and application form. This Manual was also distributed to the participants of this training.
 

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