23rd Meeting of the WBIF Project Financiers’ Group

23rd Meeting of the WBIF Project Financiers’ Group

19-05-2017

The twenty-third meeting of the WBIF Project Financiers’ Group (PFG) took place in Brussels, in between 16 and 18 May 2017. More than 75 participants from DG NEAR, WBIF financing institutions, bilateral donors, and Western Balkans beneficiaries attended the proceedings.

Plenary discussions focused on the WBIF pipeline and operations, with detailed presentations on the status of the WBIF Joint Fund, applications received for technical assistance (TA) and investment grant support under the most recent calls (Round 17 for TA and Round 2 for investments), as well as on the latest WBIF Monitoring Report.

The WBIF has allocated, to date, more than €600 million for the preparation and implementation of 140 projects across energy, environment, social, transport, and private sector development sectors, out of which €492 million represent EU grant funding. It is estimated that the current portfolio accounts for more than €15 billion investments throughout the region; approximately 40% of that represents projects that have been completed or are currently under execution.

€11.3 million could be further added to support the preparation of key infrastructure projects in response to the applications received from the beneficiaries as part of Round 17. These will be submitted for the WBIF Steering Committee’s review and subsequent approval on 14 and 15 June 2017.

Talks also included: WBIF bilateral donors’ priorities; status of the environment and social sector investments; preliminary recommendations from the WBIF study on biomass in the Western Balkans; brief update on progress with the WBIF-commissioned strategy on sustainable hydropower development in the Western Balkans; as well as a brief introduction to the status of the WBIF Management and Information System (MIS) and to recent and planned communication and visibility activities.

More details, including the agenda of the event, may be found in Library.