Micro-regional Coordinators had an Eventful and Successful Year16 February 2009
The staff of New Hungary Points attended nearly 50,000 meetings, gave advice on over 79,000 instances and travelled at least 1,840,000 kilometres during the past ten months in which the Micro-Regional Network has been operating alongside the regional development agencies.
If only taking figures, this is the quick report of last year’s activities of the network operating with 298 employees. However, there is a great deal of work behind these statistics, which has been put into developing micro-regions and improving the quality of life of the residents of specific micro-regions, since it also depends on the results achieved by the employees of the 172 New Hungary Points whether enterprises, local government and non-profit organisations operating in micro-regions will be capable of making use of EU development funding over the upcoming period.
The nearly 300 employees of the network provide assistance adjusted to specific needs, ranging from the selection of the right tender scheme, application preparation and administrative tasks tying in with implementation through to accounting, in order for individual ideas to evolve into a successful programme or investment benefiting the micro-region. Over the past period, the employees of the Micro-Regional Coordination Network documented advice provided on nearly 32,000 instances in micro-regions. Micro-regional coordinators mostly gave advice to future applicants and applicants already approved funding in connection with calls announced within the framework of regional development programmes. This work was particularly important in the most disadvantaged micro-regions, since concentrated EU funding will be made available for developing these regions in the upcoming years.
These employees faced a rather complex task in the 33 most disadvantaged micro-regions. They took part in strategic planning, compiled micro-regional level situation analysis, collected projects and coordinated the preparation of the plan documents of specific micro-regions, as well as the micro-regional planning work tying in with this. As a result of this work and the series of workshops mobilising nearly 4500 local experts, the project packages waiting to be implemented in the most disadvantaged micro-regions include over 1700 project concepts that can help develop these regions with the help of EU funding.
The employees of the network assumed a highly relevant „project doctor” role in connection with the winding up of the projects of the Human Resource Development Operational Programme of National Development Plan I: they provided assistance to project hosts for compiling their final balance in the case of 272 human resource development EU projects. The total value of these projects is estimated at 5.5 billion HUF; so drawing down these funds in time matters a great deal to the country.
The activities of the employees of the Micro-Regional Coordination Network are naturally not limited to giving advice in connection with the calls for applications of the New Hungary Development Plan. Keen interest has been shown in micro-regions towards, for example, the Norwegian Fund or calls announced within the framework of cross-border cooperation programmes. During the course of their work, micro-regional coordinators have provided and continue to offer advice in connection with these, as well as primarily national calls for applications promoting regional development and cohesion targeting local governments and multi-purpose micro-regional associations.
Dissemination of the development programmes, integrating local players – civilians, local governments and enterprises - and making them partners in the planning process is a priority task for the employees of the Micro-Regional Coordination Network. As a result of work undertaken over the past few months – such as, the nearly 50,000 meetings held with clients and the 18,000 kilometres travelled - network employees are now in direct contact with some 18,000 micro-regional partners. The employees of the Micro-Regional Coordination Network managed and continue to manage to mobilise many of these partners during the course of the public consultation of the 2009-2010 Action Plans of the New Hungary Development Plan and the preliminary presentation of opinions in connection with specific calls for applications.
Click on www.umpont.hu to access the Micro-Regional Coordination Network and contact details of staff members of the New Hungary Points.