Institutional Support to the Ministry of Environment and Spatial Planning (mesp) and River Basin Authorities cris n° 2008/162-152

4.2Organisation and implementation procedures

4.2.1General relationships between parties and Steering Committee

Steering Committee (SC) meetings were organised, in principle, every three months and were chaired by the ECLO Task manager (before June 2008, EAR officer) and the MESP Permanent Secretary. Other members of the SC were the Directors of the WD, the HMIK and the KEPA. The consultant organised, attended and wrote the minutes of these meetings.

Besides a report of the Team Leader highlighting the main progress made, Steering Committee meetings focused on issues related to a swift implementation of the Project. The environment for the development of River Basin Authorities has been a regular issue. Other issues included the improvement of regular communication and operation planning between Project and MESP management as well as formal training needs.

4.2.2Meetings and training sessions

In principle, a joint meeting was held every week between the Director of the WD, the heads of each WD unit and Key Experts. Information was exchanged on the achievements of the past week and the planning for the next week. It was also an opportunity to reach an agreement on particular issues.

All Expert ToR included the preparation of PowerPoint presentations to explain the findings of their mission to the concerned partners. Their presentations were translated in Albanian and handouts were given to participants. Usually, at the end of these presentations discussions developed future steps and action to be taken.

Other meetings were held to train partner staff in specific methods to prepare them for particular activities. Many meetings, comprising smaller groups of 4 to 5 people, were also organised for more technical discussions and the transfer of knowledge.

Requests for the inclusion of new experts into the Project with the respective ToR, were approved by the Director of the WD before these were sent to ECLO.

4.2.3Timetable

The detailed work plan prepared in the Inception Plan was simplified at the end of 2008 to facilitate reporting after the handover process between EAR and ECLO. Activities were grouped or reshuffled. This Inception Plan had the following new elements and activities:

• 
  Activities on the Information System were extended, for several months. This included: (i) the delay required to agree on the WIS main concepts and to acquire and train staff in ArcGIS software use. It should be noted that the KEPA Information Officer did not support the development of a WIS in the WD, as KEPA was using MapInfo. (ii) The difficulty in finding an available and qualified local expert for developing a computer application.
  
• 
  Institutional support was extended up to September 2009 as there was an unclear high-level commitment.
  
• 
  Taking into account the conclusions of the Project’s mid-term review, especially the need to acquire groundwater information and to increase knowledge transfer, additional activities were launched through the Pilot Projects in April-May 2009.
  
• 
  These PP covered biology for the River Lumbardhi Prizren and groundwater characterization in the Istok region, as well as the formulation of a water management plan for Decani-Radoniqi water system (the PP on flood risk was already decided, before the mid-term review.
  
  

Figure : Project implementation and training schedule

4.3Costs and financing plan

The incidental budget consumed is detailed in Table 14.

Table : Expenses on incidental budget

Incidental Budget (before allocation for extension of one month -addendum Dec.09)	Planned Budget EUR	Used Budget EUR	open subtotal EUR
A Travel Cost and Per diems in Kosovo	15 782	1410	14372
B Training, workshops and related travels and per diems in Kosovo; including study tours	115 000	81593.28	33406.72
C Translation of training material & Interpretation	10 000	7276	2724
D Provision of digital maps and other data necessary (aerial photographs)	20 000	9960	10040
E Software licenses	10 000	4300	6700
Incidental Grand Total	170 782*	104539.28	66242.72

* In addendum dated 14.12.2009 of the contract, the Grand Total of the IB was reduced by 29,218 €, from 200,000 € to 170,782 €

Most of the incidental budget was utilised for the study tours, numerous workshops and for travel expenses for Pilot Project activities. 15% of the remaining budget has been allocated to inputs for an extension of one month from 20 January to 28 February 2010. This extension has been approved by ECLO in December 14 2009.