Two capacity building activities were organised during September 2022 for staff of the Operating structures (Ministry of European Affairs of Montenegro, Ministry of finance of Montenegro – Directorate for Finance and Contracting of the EU assistance Funds, Ministry of Local Government Administration of Republic of Kosovo and State Agency for Strategic Programming and Aid Coordination of Republic of Albania) and Joint technical Secretariat of the IPA CBC Programmes Montenegro-Albania and Montenegro-Kosovo 2014-2020.
The first training on Evaluation of the Call for Proposals was organised and held on 7th and 8th September in Shkodra (Albania), during which 19 participants had the opportunity to gain knowledge on the evaluation process. The training aimed at achieving an enhanced understanding of the provisions of the Call for Proposals with special emphasis on the selection of concept notes and full applications. Besides the representatives of the Operating structures and JTS, the training was attended by the representatives of the Delegation of European Union to Montenegro and Delegation of European Union to Albania. The training was provided by CBIB+ expert, Mr Enrique Aguado Asenjo.
The training encompassed theoretical, practical and group work. The participants gained knowledge and information on how to practically address problems encountered by the evaluation committees when handling Call for Proposals at steps 1 ‘evaluation of concept notes’ and 2 ‘evaluation of full applications’. In addition, they were provided with professional advice on how to address sensitive issues on communication with the applicants (i.e. clarifications) and on how to complete the evaluation grid for concept notes and full applications within these two Programmes.
The second capacity building activity, Training on Irregularities and risks, was organised on 14th and 15th September in Prishtina (Kosovo) and it was attended by 19 participants. The Training on irregularities and risks was held with the aim to strengthen the capacities of the operating structures and JTS on irregularities and risk management in relation to the EU funded projects within the Programmes in line with the EU rules, standards and procedures. The training was delivered by two experts, i.e. Ms. Mirjana Juric, Head of AFCOS Service within Ministry of Finance of Croatia and Ms. Ana Srdinić-Kovačić, Head of Department for Audit of Operations, Agency for Audit of European Union Programmes Implementation System (ARPA) of Croatia.
During the two-day training the participants had the opportunity to gain knowledge and exchange experience and discuss on risk and irregularities management, instruments and methods for detection of irregularities, ways of reporting on irregularities and recovering the caused damage, suspicion of fraud and its detection, conduction of audit, verification and checks. The participants also had the opportunity to obtain information on understanding the concept, functioning and role of AFCOS (Anti-fraud coordination service) and OLAF (European Anti-Fraud Office), as well as to hear the examples from Croatia from the period of pre-accession process and from the period since they became the EU members.
