Certificates awarded to the participants of the third generation of the Programme “Management of Regional Development through EU Funds“
The ceremony of awarding certificates to the participants who successfully completed the specialised Programme “Management of Regional Development through EU Funds” has been held today at the premises of the Faculty of Economics in Novi Sad. The Programme has been implemented jointly by the Faculty of Economics and the European Affairs Fund of AP Vojvodina.
István Pásztor, President of the Assembly of AP Vojvodina, who is also the Chairman of the Managing Board of the European Affairs Fund of AP Vojvodina, presented the certificates to the participants who successfully completed the six-month Programme, emphasizing his belief that the knowledge and experience they gained in the previous period would be best used in the professional sense, but that at the same time, they would contribute to the development of local self-governments, institutions and NGOs from which they came.
“The position of local and regional government has changed greatly over the past twenty years. It no longer represents an administrative function that exclusively satisfies citizens’ needs, but also has a development function. This development is not possible without the use of opportunities that the EU funds offer, and therefore it is important to create a critical group of people and knowledge that will manage to meet the needs of this development function”, said Pásztor.
Ognjen Bjelić Provincial Secretary for Regional Development, Interregional Cooperation and Local Self-Government, emphasized the importance of a large number of participants and a growing interest in the Programme.
“We now have the third generation of young people who have undergone the training programme in the field of management of regional development through EU funds. This is for us very important considering the political readiness of Serbia and the Province of Vojvodina to become part of the European Union through the process of European integration, where the function of regional development is highlighted” said Bjelić, adding that it was almost impossible to talk about regional development without having educated people who had expertise in the field.
Vidosava Enderić, Director of the European Affairs Fund of AP Vojvodina, emphasized that the creation of new knowledge was necessary on the road to the EU, and that the Programme participants had already created some joint projects that could be used in the following period, given that the IPA CBC Call for Proposals with Romania was already open, and in 2018, the Calls within the IPA CBC Croatia and Hungary would be opened.
Prof Aleksandar Grubor Ph.D, Dean of the Faculty of Economics in Subotica, said that the countries in the region, and so did the Republic of Serbia, face the problem of high urbanization, i.e. the concentration of the population in larger cities, and that the development of local self-governments, to which the participants of the Programme would contribute, was one of the ways of solving the issues of balanced regional development.
The project “Management of Regional Development through EU Funds“ is funded by the AP Vojvodina and 45 participants from provincial secretariats and institutions, local self-governments and civil society organizations participated in it. The participants attended classes within four teaching modules: Economics, Law and Politics of the European Union and the Accession Process; Management of Local and Regional Development; Programmes of the European Union and Project Management.
