Municipal and Regional Infrastructure

WBIF provided technical assistance to the Serbian Ministry of National Investments and Plans (MNIP) for creating the systems for advancing finance to small-scale municipal infrastructure across Serbia.

The EIB loan provided resources for Serbia’s municipalities to establish, replace and/or upgrade small-scale infrastructure at the local level, such as local roads and transport networks, social and health facilities, education, and cultural and historical heritage centres. The beneficiaries are municipalities, towns and cities, public utility companies and other public institutions, while it has been estimated that at least 500,000 inhabitants will be positively impacted by these investments.

Following the establishment of a project management unit (PMU) within the MNIP, the WBIF assisted in the development of standard procedures for the project implementation. Supported tasks have included:

• Elaborating all documents required by the EIB to approve allocation requests submitted by MNIP, and the disbursement of the loan during the implementation of the approved projects;
• Establishing a dedicated and specific financial database;
• Establishing filing systems, including a systematic review of all procurement practices within the MNIP in order to achieve a fair, competitive and transparent tendering and contracting procedure;
• Granting the compliance recognition of the selected projects with the main environment regulations issued by the EU;
• Supporting the PMU to monitor the technical and financial follow-up of the projects during the implementation phase;
• Establishing PMU working methodologies and proceedings between the PMU and the project implementation units based in the participating municipalities.