News and Events

Work Meeting Entitled “Strengthening of the Capacity of Regional Development Councils” in Plovdiv
14.07.2009

On 9 and 10.07.2009 in Plovdiv a work meeting entitled “Strengthening of the Capacity of Regional Development Councils” took place. Twenty representatives of the Ministry of Regional Development and Public Works (MRDPW) and the six specialized territorial units, which manage the implementation and monitoring of the implementation of the Regional Development Plans of the six planning level 2 regions in Bulgaria, participated at the meeting. According to the final changes in the Regional Development Act (RDA) as of 31.08.2009 for the purpose of planning, programming, management, supply, monitoring and evaluation of the regional development in Bulgaria, new regions were formed witch divide into levels, reflecting the requirements for general classification of strategic territorial units adopted by the European Union. The meeting was organized under a project for technical assistance financed by the MRDPW and implemented by Bulgarian Rating Agency AD.

Two strategic documents aiming to support the implementation of Regional Development Plans and the work of the Regional Development Councils (RDC), which control their implementation will be developed under this project until the end of August 2009, namely: Strategy for Organizational Development of Administrative Structures and Units Relevant to the Work of RDC until 2013 and RDC Strategic Agenda until 2013.

Main issues in the work of the RDC shared by the directors of the six specialized territorial units of the planning regions of MRDPW include: lack of sufficient financing of the work of the Councils; frequent changes in the group of representatives of the organizations included in the Councils; absence of a unified information website, which would advertize the work of the Councils and the results the achieve; difficulties with the collection of data from the management units of the seven operational porgrammes for the effect from the implementation of these programmes in a specific planning region; insufficient equipment for the conduction of the regular RDC meetings.

During the period 15-25 July the General Directorate “Regional Policy and Management Systems” of the MRDPW will conduct a research among the members of the RDCs (more than 200 people) aiming to point out issues and recommendations for improvement of the work of these structures. The results of the research will be reported during a final work seminar under the project which will take place on 31.07.2009 in c.c. “Golden Sands”

Additional Information:

Meeting Agenda (only in Bulgarian)

Regional Development Act (only in Bulgarian)

Regional Developmnet Act - Rules and Regulations (only in Bulgarian)

Bulgaria’s Level 2 Regions (only in Bulgarian)