Capacity Development Team from the UNDP Bratislava Regional Centre at the CEF

The CEF invited capacity development experts from the UNDP Bratislava Regional Center to Ljubljana to share their knowledge and experience with around 20 representatives of public administrations, specialized training institutions and other stakeholder organizations from the Danube region that comprise the EU Strategy for the Danube Region working group on institutional capacity.

The working group that met for the second time at the CEF on March 21–22, 2013 focused on capacity development and needs assessment approaches. The UNDP experts, Albert Soer and Bob Bernardo, talked about trends in capacity development and needs assessment methodologies, and reflected on the latest innovative tools. Representatives of the public administration training institutions and other members of the working group described how their institutions assess capacity needs and what challenges they face in this process. A part of the meeting was dedicated to projects that the members of the working group on institutional capacity are developing or already implementing within the scope of the EUSDR.

About EUSDR

The European Union Strategy for the Danube Region (EUSDR) is a macro-regional strategy adopted by the European Commission in 2010 and endorsed by the European Council in 2011. The strategy was designed to take advantage of synergies and coordination between existing policies and initiatives across the Danube region and thus improve connectivity within the region as well as with the rest of Europe. As part of the EUSDR, the CEF and the City of Vienna are coordinators of institutional capacity and cooperation, one of the eleven priority areas of the strategy.

Further information on the EUSDR can be found here.