Starting 2016, MKBT partenered Reșița Municipality to co-found the Reșița Local Action Group, alongside other local public and private stakeholders. Later on, Reșița has benefited from EU funding for preparatory support (via the Human Capital Operational Program – SCOP) for LAG animation and elaboration of its strategy for urban regeneration of marginalized urban areas of the city. In this context, MKBT coordinated, between September and November 2017, the strategic participatory planing process, working closely with LAG members and other entities which contributed data collecting and urban poverty analysis.
The marginalized urban areas targeted by the strategy are Mociur, Dealu Crucii, Traian Lalescu 18, Moara Juracek and Baraj Collony. A summary of the identified needs and proposed interventions is available at this link (Romanian only).
In January 2018, following the HCOP Managing Authority evaluation, Reșița LAG’s strategy achieved the third score (equal to Sebeş) in the ranking of all 49 strategies submitted for funding. Thus, Reșița LAG passed to the next stage, that is the implementation of the ‘Community-Led Local Development’ mechanism. Reșița LAG prepared and submitted the project supporting the LAG’s activity as coordinating entity of interventions and disbursement of an allocated budget of 7 mil. EUR, both from ERDF and ESF funding.
MKBT aims to remain an active partner of GAL Reșița in implementing the actions and interventions proposed in its strategy. MKBT will also support GAL Reșița for further expanding its range of actions and capabilities for also addressing other challenges and areas that could not be considered at the time of the strategy. For example, MKBT and GAL Reșița are joint implementing partners of the project ‘No man’s land: informal housing in Roma communities – recognition, responsibility and shared solutions’, dealing with informal housing in Romania. This project includes, among its case studies, Reșița’s informal settlements located in Câlnic – Str. Bistra, Ţerova – Str. Viitorului and Dealu Crucii (more details here).
More information on LAG Reșița is available here: galresita.ro (Romanian only)
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The CLLD – that is the “Community-Led Local Development” – is a method and funding instrument promoted by the European Union to support integrated bottom-up actions for the regeneration of marginalized neighborhoods. The benefit of this approach is the possibility of multi-fund financing, which allows for complementary, simultaneous investments in both hard (tangible investments) and soft projects (social, community, educational etc work lacking a tangible side) to address major challenges of urban poverty and marginalization. CLLD implementation in urban areas in Romania implies the formation of a Local Action Group consisting of civil society organizations, citizens and institutions, which together define the intervention areas and draft a participatory development strategy. The strategy includes both an analysis and prioritization of problems pertaining to the selected areas as well as define the proposed interventions and allocated investments.
