Infrastructure has always determined the quality of people’s lives and is an instrumental ingredient of efforts to achieve economic growth. It is about the way we move, communicate, have access to clean water, energy security, and much more.
In the South and South West, as in many other parts of Serbia, infrastructure is in serious need of reconstruction and renovation. Municipalities have usually funded any infrastructure projects from their current expenditure but with dwindling and unreliable budgets, maintenance and renovation programmes have fallen far behind. Another, perhaps even an issue of a higher concern is that municipalities were not capacitated to prepare relevant planning or project technical documentation in a systematic manner which poses additional obstacle for development of infrastructure.
Having in mind above said, the EU PROGRES will, through infrastructure component, provide support to municipalities on several levels.
Emphasis will be put on funding of small scale municipal infrastructure as well as of projects of inter-municipal and national importance. The latter will be primarily done through partnerships and co-funding with the Serbian Government. In addition, EU PROGRES will provide support for the development of documentation for inter-municipal and municipal projects, thus preparing municipalities to access funds of other development programmes, Serbian Government, but in the first pre accession funds of the European Union.
On the one hand, EU PROGRES support will ensure immediate and visible infrastructure improvements in infrastructure and thus improve quality of life. On the other, interventions will facilitate conditions for long term capital investments.