Introduction
Project Start up of the network on Structural Funds Impacts and Transparency is being implemented by Slovak Governance Institute (Slovakia) in collaboration with Praxis (Estonia), Providus (Latvia), Transparency International (Lithuania), Europeum (Czech Republic), CPS - CEU (Hungary). Seeing that the new member states will receive, as a part of the new 2007-2013 Financial Perspective, an amount of external financial assistance which is unprecedented in their history, there are several threats regarding the use of the Structural Funds.
There is a danger that monies will not be allocated and/or used efficiently, that there will not be sufficient projects, and that there is not enough capacity to absorb the huge sums involved. Moreover informed public debate on how the money is spent is missing. Civil society's ability to engaged with and monitor governmental action in this field has only recently been developed. NGOs and watchdog organizations can only effectively engage with the government agencies administering the Funds if their arguments are underpinned with methodologically sound research. This problem is compounded by the high complexity of the rules of governance of these resources and the limited oversight mechanisms controlled mainly by national governments.
This project aims to help mitigate the above risk factors by building the capacity of independent experts and civil society groups to inform public debate, to evaluate and assess the performance and to offer ongoing monitoring of the impact of Structural Funds. It will seek to accumulate relevant knowledge and experience to broaden the scope of people involved in the research of Structural Funds to improve the overall capacity of Structural Funds research in Central and Eastern Europe. The partners involved will carry out studies of the different stages, produce critical case studies of projects, work with local NGOs to increase their intervention capacity and collaborate with experts working in related fields of revenue watch/monitoring work.
Thematic
Area/s:
Structural Funds, transparency, governance, public policy,
effectiveness.
