Sarajevo- Due to SNV' support, 54 municipalities in Bosnia and Herzegovina were able to apply for the first time to the Japan's 2007 Aid Grant Program. The municipalities submitted 120 project proposals out of a total of 180 received. Water related project proposals contributed to more than 1/3 of the overall number of project proposals submitted, indicating the high demand for financial support in this sector at the local level.
SNV’s involvement began in June 2007, when the Banovici municipality asked for assistance regarding the Japanese Foundation Call for Proposals via BiH Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
After several meetings with the BiH Directorate for Economic Planning, SNV learned that the top-down channel of distribution of information and inadequate organizational and staff capacities within the local governments themselves were the main reasons why the number of the applications was very limited in the past two years (less than 30).
SNV advisors collected all the information about the program, summarized and distributed it along with translated application forms, not only to the Banovici municipality, but to all BiH municipalities via SNV partners – the Associations of cities and municipalities.
The Associations and SNV BiH further provided advice to municipalities on the process, application structure, links with the national development agenda and technical details. SNV BiH provided direct assistance in project proposal preparation to its existing clients in the sectors of drinking water and non-timber forest products. In addition, SNV provided direct capacity building services to five municipalities in preparing applications for JICA 2007 Aid Grant. So far 9 projects have been awarded, five out of which are municipal projects.
“The most important result of this activity, is that 100% of BiH municipalities received full information on an international funding opportunity relevant for implementation of local development measures through existing state information exchange”- says Semsa Alic, senior advisor in SNV Sarajevo.