Four Technical Cooperation (TC) projects targeting the transport, energy and policy dialogue sectors have been approved for financing by the CEI Fund at the EBRD, entirely contributed by Italy, with an overall financial commitment of 795,000 EUR. This demonstrates the successful cooperation between the CEI and the EBRD in supporting the economic and social transformation process of non-EU CEI countries, thus facilitating their European path through regional cooperation.
TC operations - in the form of grant-type assistance - provide funding for the preparation and implementation of the EBRD’s investments and advisory services to private and public sector clients (support for feasibility and pre-feasibility studies, sector and environmental engineering, management training, capacity building and pre-loan audits).
The major portion of the approved resources, 400,000 EUR, will support a technical assistance providing organisational and technical support to the Independent System Operator (ISO) of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the company in charge of managing the power supply system in the country. The EBRD will provide financing for supply and installation of the new state-of-the-art IT systems as well as support for the construction of the ISO headquarters with a dispatching centre in Sarajevo. The investment project has an estimated cost of about 8.5 million EUR.
The 40-week project on Climate Resilience in the Bosnian Road Network. FBIH Roads – Flood Repair and Upgrade Technical Assistance will be financed with 135,000 EUR. Due to the climate change and the recent floods that affected Bosnia and Herzegovina in May 2014, several bridges and road sections have collapsed, amounting total losses in the transportation sector to an estimated 512 million BAM. The EBRD is considering a sovereign loan of up to 57 million EUR for on-lending to the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and to the Public Company Roads of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina to finance the reparation and modernisation of selected road sections and structures in the Federation. In addition, the financing also aims at improving the level of service and traffic safety on the primary road network.
The CEI-funded assistance will mainly provide support to the Roads Agency in: establishing an institutional framework for assessing, managing and communicating climate risks to the road network; assessing climate risks to the road network and mapping specific vulnerabilities; developing an adaptation strategy to climate change; the implementation of climate resilience measures under the EBRD investment project.
The International Master in Public Procurement Management (IMPPM) at the University of Rome Tor Vergata (Italy) will be co-funded with 100,000 EUR. The CEI Fund has already successfully sponsored the first three editions of the Master’s Programme, by offering full sponsorship to senior public procurement managers and officials selected from non-EU CEI Member States.
The main objective of the Master’s Programme is to raise the academic level and training of public procurement officials, from different backgrounds, to have the capacity to design and administer procurement solutions, to resolve complex strategic, managerial and organisational problems. The first three years of the IMPPM experience have been valuable to identify opportunities for improvement, based on feedback from students, professors and EBRD experts. Excellent results achieved with the three editions of the Master’s have served as a basis for the continuation and consolidation of the Master’s Programme aimed at enhancing public procurement professionalism in the EBRD’s countries in transition.
The fourth assignment is linked to a comprehensive investment programme. It aims at strengthening the logistical infrastructure moving goods and services across China to Europe. The Government of China has recently launched the programme planning to establish a comprehensive, multimodal infrastructure corridor (the Silk Road) that will span across the mainland of China, from central Asia to Europe, including road, railway, and ports infrastructure. The CEI-funded technical assistance project Investment in the Silk Road infrastructure corridor: the Western Balkans route, financed with 160,000 EUR, will provide a framework for analysis, policy dialogue and investments between key governments in the region as well as key investors, both public and private.
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Established in 1992 by the Italian Government, the CEI Fund at the EBRD aims at assisting the Bank’s countries of operation in Central and Eastern Europe in their economic and social transformation process. Since its inception, Italy has contributed 41.5 million EUR to the Fund, most of which has been allocated for TC projects where the Fund has committed around 25 million EUR.