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AER & R20: where do we stand?

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This week (19 June 2017) AER President Magnus Berntsson was elected R20 (regions of climate action) President by the R20 Governing Board and General Assembly.

AER and R20 have enjoyed a close relationship over the last years, leading to a smooth and almost expected result.

But where do we stand in our alliance with the R20 to help regions fund their green transition ?

Lately, AER has been a contributor to the R20 campaign « 100 climate solutions projects campaign » with 36 projects from AER members proposed for financing. This important step was crucial to show doubtful investors that regions had well planned projects ready for investments. Thank you again to all AER members who participated in this call and whose projects will be further considered when the venture succeeds.

(for further information on the campaign see here)

With investors reassured, it is now a second phase that opens in front of us: securing a wide range of funds from different actors in order to actually help finance these regional projects.

To that end, R20 is working on an important dedicated impact investment fund with a worldwide recognised and UN founded impact investment fund manager : Blue Orchard. This new fund, named Subnational Climate Fund aims at reaching 350 million USD to finance regional projects all across the globe. This will allow access to first loss equity parts (20% to 30%) of CAPEX of the green infrastructure projects. Such investments will then allow for securing debt from subnational and national governments as well as development banks.

In parallel, the Leonardo di Caprio Foundation is developing a 1 billion USD Planet Pledge Fund, which will allow complementary equity investment in the same portfolio of projects.

This evolution makes R20 a leading alliance of sub-national governments, private companies and finance institutions enabling the shift to the green economy.

The fight to get public and development banks as well as institutional support is underway. AER has been an instrumental driving force in helping the R20 and Blue Orchard to have access to the right people in the European Union and at the European Investment Bank. Very active in this process, AER has not been communicating much about this activity as discretion is key in this phase of the work.

Our joint AER/R20 aim is to become, more than a lobbying or exchange of best practice platform on green issues, an actual concrete action and finance nexus at regional level.

The fight continues and we count on your support in the months to come.

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The first SEED webinar – register today

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1st Webinar: ‘’Why is this award something for me?’’

21st June 2017 from 11:00 – 12:00 h CET

Webinar: Supporting the recognition of the Silver Economy in Europe in the Digital Era – Submit your application now!

The Silver Economy Awards is a new initiative to reward ICT-based innovative solutions that improve the lives of European seniors and support the growth of the European Silver Economy. Serving as a catalyst to stimulate a sustainable Europe-wide digital Silver Economy movement, the Awards promote and reward innovative and creative ideas that have proven benefits for people aged 50 and above. The call for applications opens on 8 June 2017 and deadline for receiving applications is on 15 November 2017.

The Silver Economy Awards consists of three award categories:

  • Public Authority,
  • Non-for-profit organisation and
  • For-profit organisation.

Innovative solutions and applications are welcomed from the broad spectrum of areas that make up the European Silver Economy. All applicants will benefit from online publication on the Silver Economy website and winners and finalists will be invited to showcase their product or service at the high-levelled Award Ceremony in spring 2018, where they will be celebrated for their achievements.

In a dedicated webinar, SEED consortium members will explain the aim of the Award Scheme and where and how to apply for the first edition of Silver Economy Awards. Benefits and possible outcomes for those that will apply will be highlighted and some time will be also dedicated to answer questions from potential applicants. The webinar is targeted to all those who are interested in submitting an application, i.e. public authorities (e.g. city, town, region, province), non-for profit actors (e.g. civil society organisation, university) and for-profit actors (e.g. entrepreneurs, service providers, SMEs).

We invite you to join us to this online meeting on Wednesday 21 June 2017 at 11:00 (CEST/Brussels time).

 

 

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JPICH Digital Heritage: Looking for a research lab?

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As we approach the European Year of Cultural Heritage, AER and its members have been active and creative in engaging culture-focused projects.

Mesarch, a research laboratory dealing with the history and theory of Modern Architecture in the Eastern Mediterranean (Department of Architecture, University of Cyprus) is interested in teaming up with other research networks working on the JPICH Digital Heritage Call.

Are you interested in growing your network within the scope of the JPICH Digital Heritage Call? Are you working on projects dealing with cultural heritage?

If yes is your answer, Mesarch is interested in hearing from you.

What can Mesarch offer for your project?

At least three research teams and a maximum of five teams are allowed for each project Consortium, each from a different eligible country. As associate partners can have key roles in exploration of knowledge transfer/exchange potential and impact of the proposed research, Mesarch offers you its Lab members’ extensive research experience and expertise in Cyprus and abroad. Mesarch Lab can certainly contribute to both extending the network and also shaping a competitive and high standard research proposal.

Research programs done by Mesarch cover the following issues:

  • critical historiography and digital research tools,
  • history-theory of modern architecture and urbanism,
  • social dimensions of urban development in 20th Century,
  • politics of environmentalism and sustainability in architecture,
  • cultural heritage, memory and conflict in Cyprus and the Eastern Mediterranean.

Owing to these experiences, Mesarch is ready to be a partner in your 12-36 months-length project at any stages on the following topics:

  • Topic one ‘The Critical: Engagements with Digital Heritage’,
  • Topic two ‘The Curatorial: Communities and Digital Heritage’.

The Research Lab is especially keen to discuss:

  • projects considering modern architectural heritage in areas of conflict
  • projects considering the ways digital scholarship is affecting both historiography and heritage studies.

About Digital Heritage and research

Cultural heritage is digitised or born-digital. Digital methods are used for the creation, exploration, study, understanding, interpretation, presentation and dissemination of as well as conservation and protection of tangible and intangible cultural heritage. It also includes the promotion of community engagement with, and the use of, heritage. However, this Call does not focus on only the involvement of researchers of the digital heritage field, but it also targets interdisciplinary research-based projects aiming at maximising the value and impact of research outcomes through exchanges of all stakeholders such as researchers of any field, general public and policy makers.

For those who are interested in the JPICH Digital Heritage Call

This funding opportunity of the Joint Programming Initiative in Cultural Heritage and Global Change is designed to support research-based transnational proposals in the area of Digital Heritage, and therefore, meeting societal challenges. Projects need to be focused on a main topic, but those can address more than one of the 3 research topics in order to meet these challenges affecting cultural heritage in a broader sense:

  • Topic one ‘The Critical: Engagements with Digital Heritage’: Exploring ways to engage new audiences and encourage the use of digital heritage to promote critical and reflective cultural engagements with that certain heritage.
  • Topic two ‘The Curatorial: Communities and Digital Heritage’: Exploring ways of more effectively co-curating digital cultural heritage with communities or understanding a communities’ digital heritage.
  • Topic three ‘Safeguarding Digital Heritage’: new ethical, legal and governance policies to ensure the usability and sustainability of these services, databases and practices of research.

Only beneficiaries located in the countries participating in the JPICH Digital Heritage Call and eligible for the funding organisation specified are eligible to apply, irrespective of their nationality. The Consortium have the opportunity for the proposal submission until 14:00 (CEST) on 22th June.

If you are planning to contact us, please send an e-mail to the AER Secretariat by 14th June.

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Follow up on youth mental health: join our working meeting at 2017 AER General Assembly

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Following the discussion on youth mental health on occasion of the AER Spring Plenaries, AER Secretariat is fully supporting the development of actions on this topic having AER members chosen to create a specific working group aimed at both sharing experiences and defining a joint European project proposal. To this extent, AER Committee 2 on Social Policy & Public Health and Committee 3 on Culture, Education & Youth decided to join forces and use interregional cooperation to improve policies in this field.

To move this decision into actions, we take the opportunity of member regions gathering together at 2017 AER General Assembly to organise a first operational meeting in order to brainstorm on this topic, sharing previous experiences, analysing EU funding opportunities & calls that could finance the development of a project idea and planning next steps.

This meeting will take place within the General Assembly, on 31st May from h 12:00 to h 13:00, and it is structured as follows:

  • Catalonia and Norbotten, which are co-leading the working on youth mental health, will share their background on this topic and their ideas on how to move this at interregional level;
  • AER Secretariat will present an overview of the main EU funded programmes and initiatives that could support the development of a joint project idea as well as potential experts in this field that we could support us for the content;
  • Member regions are welcome to also share their prevision experiences on this topic and objective to improve them;
  • Planning of next steps in terms of project development and sharing good practices on this topic;

If you wish to join this meeting (please, remember to bring sandwich/lunch with you!!) and/or to get more information regarding the working group on youth mental health, please contact Johanna Pacevicius – AER Coordinator for Policy & Knowledge Transfer, and Agnese Pantaloni – AER Coordinator for European projects & Private partnerships.

Useful links for background information:

Johannes Sundelin, “The difficulty for young people to relate to others, and why this is a problem for Norrbotten”

Angels Piédrola, “Youth inclusion & social skills: experiences from Catalonia”

Youth: inclusion & social skills

Youth mental health: pressing needs across Europe

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The first European Silver Economy Awards at the AER General Assembly

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The AER General Assembly is one of the launching events of the fist European level Silver Economy Awards. AER is proud to be a partner of the SEED project, the promoter of this important initiative.
Silver Economy is on the AER priority list since years. Already AER and member regions addressed Silver Economy  at the Training Academy in Aalborg in 2015 and more recently at the 2016 European Summit on Innovation for Active and Healthy Ageing (EIP on AHA), network in which eight AER member regions are active players.

SEED project powers the Silver Economy Awards
SEE project represents a good achievement for AER within the project side, having a big potential for the three Committees both in terms of content and activities. AER briefly presented the project at the last 2017 Spring Plenary now we would like to share with member regions more information being the time for the launching of its main activity: the Silver Economy Awards.
SEED is the acronym of “Supporting the recognition of the Silver Economy in Europe in the Digital era”, a successful project submitted under the Horizon 2020 programme, as Coordination and Support Action. Led by Empirica, SEED aims to put under the spot innovative solutions that show the prominence of the silver economy and the importance of the quality of life for the ageing population.
The nine partners of the consortium are engaged to design, organise and launch an innovative award scheme to finally give to silver economy the highest visibility possible at EU level.
The Silver Economy Awards has a long term vision as, once the two years project ends, the European Covenant of Demographic Change will assure the sustainability of the award itself.

The launch of the Silver Economy Awards: the stand at the General Assembly
The 2017 edition of the General Assembly is going to be an important milestone of the promotion of the award. AER took the opportunity of this important event for the AER network getting to know the process to apply and to promote the participation to the award among the member regions. AER wants member regions to submit all the great experiences they are carrying on to show how regional authorities and stakeholders are committed and innovative in this field. To put member regions in the best position to prepare a successful application, AER provides new format: not the usual presentation, but a stand. The Silver Economy Awards stand will be accessible to all the participants of the General Assembly during the two days of the event. Agnese Pantaloni – Coordinator for European projects and private partnerships, helped by Elin Berglie – Coordinator for member relations, will give you all the information about the Silver Economy Awards.

The must-to-know of the Silver Economy Awards
AER members are used to awards. The Regional Innovation Award is an an opportunity that no region want to miss.  Following the 2016 Regional Innovation Award on circular economy, this time (2017) the Silver Economy Awards will replace the replaces the Regional Innovation Award.
Member regions will have even a broader visibility thank to the composition of the award stakeholders. Not only public authorities, but also non-for-profit and business organisations.
Save the dates: applications opens the 8th June and close the 15th Novembre 2017.
The award ceremony is planned in Brussels, in May 2018.

Check the website of the Silver Economy Awards and bring your questions to the stand!

If you are already looking for additional information, do not hesitate to contact the AER Secretariat!

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Interreg Europe for cultural heritage: do you want to join ProCHESS?

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Cultural heritage continues to be a key topic for many AER member regions. To this extent, we would like to inform you about an interesting project proposal that Umbria region (IT) is preparing on this topic in the framework of the Interreg Europe programme, priority axis 4 “Environment and resource efficiency (Investment priority 6c “Conserving, protecting, promoting and developing natural and cultural heritage”, specific objective 4.1: Improving natural and cultural heritage policies) and make you aware that Umbria is looking for partners to complete the consortia. Therefore, we invite our member regions to take advantage of this valuable opportunity!

Project summary

This project, called Promoting Cultural Heritage through Entrepreneurship Support and Simplification (ProCHESS), aims to improve and promote policies/instruments relevant for any European region facing an inadequate existing cultural heritage exploitation. It will focus on the exchange of experiences and strategies about creation of cultural and creative enterprises with the following subject targeted:

  1. Promoting qualified skills and competencies in the field of cultural heritage.
  2. Using international mobility schemes as tool of business creation for cultural and creative industries.
  3. Provide coaching and managerial support for young entrepreneurs in the field of cultural heritage.
  4. Reduce administrative and legal burden for young entrepreneurs and startups in the field of cultural heritage.
  5. Digital Agenda as an asset to assist young entrepreneurs and startups in the field of cultural heritage.

The project will be designed as follows:

  • Exchange of best practices between partners
  • Divided into five workshops with one specific focus theme each
  • Set up a long-term cooperation and partnership between regional partners
  • Involve regional stakeholders and key regional decision-makers to ensure the successful implementation of the selected good practices.

The partners searched for ProCHESS are:

  1. Leader regions (at least 3): Regional managing Authorities/public authorities experienced in some of the themes, assuming that the project will be designed to ensure that these partners can access and import relevant good practices;
  2. Learner regions (up to 5): Regional managing Authorities/public authorities with specific interest in the project.

If you wish to to join ProCHESS project and/or ask additional information about it, please get in touch with AER Secretariat by the 25th May.

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AER attended the Copernicus for Cultural Heritage Workshop

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Following the outcomes of the AER Spring plenaries in London where members highlighted their interest on cultural heritage both in terms of exchange of good practices and project development, AER attended a workshop in Brussels focused on Copernicus in support of cultural heritage, in particular for what concern preservation.

Therefore, AER had the possibility to get deeper insight into the Copernicus Programme and wish now to share it with member regions and partners. The Programme supports technological tools and services to tackle societal and territorial challenges in diverse fields, among which cultural heritage.

Why do we care?

Cultural heritages are under threats of material degradation and/or change of cultural landscape. 76% of World Heritage Sites are affected at least by one geo-hazard. There has been already a link between remote sensing and cultural heritage, however, it has many limitations beside its potentials and it is still a peer area in Europe. Developing technological tools and services are needed for regular protection, monitoring, documenting and sharing information about our heritages, for example, these technologies are useful for cultural heritage maintenance to reduce disaster risks.

Copernicus is useful for policy makers, researchers, commercial to private users at all scales to enable understanding of the Earth by providing different services such as emergency management and land monitoring. Copernicus is coordinated by the European Commission in partnership with EU Member States. According to [email protected] Online Database, 49 regions highlights the importance of culture and creative industries as regional priority to stimulate knowledge-driven growth. Regions are important users, however, they have difficulties with compliancy and implementation of EU directives and policies concerning natural and built environment. On the other hand, regions are also “producers” as main authorities for spatial data infrastructures and services of environmental agencies.

If you are interested in cultural heritage preservation, you can find all the materials about the contents of the event on the Workshop website. On that occasion, an interesting presentation was provided by our partner network NEREUS -the Network of European Regions Using Space Technologies – which stressed the benefits of space technologies for end-users such as public authorities and tourism players.

 

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Join the “New possibilities” project on model of working with addicts

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We are happy to announce a new partner search from the Wroclaw Centre for Integration (WCI), the unit of the Municipality of Wroclaw involved in social and professional activation of people without employment who are experiencing problems such as disability, homelessness.

What is the proposed project  about?

The project idea, titled  “New possibilities”, is about developing a model of working with addicts, based on the concept of harm reduction in order to maintain total abstinence. Abstinence is an unattainable goal. There is no access to other alcohol harm reduction models, so a significant proportion of people with a problem cannot fully benefit from help getting back into the labour market. The Wroclaw Health Centre has started the implementation of alcohol harm reduction program aimed to launch a pilot program targeting non-employed people with alcohol problems who will benefit from the alcohol harm reduction programme.

This project will be submitted in the framework of the Operational Program – Knowledge Development Education, Measure 4.3 Transnational Cooperation, having as deadline September/October 2017.

Who are the partners searched to join this project?

The partners searched to complete the consortium are non-governmental organisations whose mission is to help addicts (especially alcohol) to return to the labor market and which should be able to demonstrate the experience of the beneficiaries’ use of harm reduction programs.

The Wroclaw Centre for Integration would like to learn from the additional partners the specifics of the implementation of harm reduction programs and the principles of co-operation between different actors, aimed at reducing alcohol harm and professional activation of addicts, in order to transfer experience from other countries to Poland.

If you are interested to join this project or just to learn more about it, please contact the AER Secretariat by 26th May.

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EEA and Norway Grants: tackle “hard-to-reach” youth unemployment

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Youth employment is a top priority not only for the European Union. AER is fully engaged since years to support the implementation of concrete and effective actions. The AER Summer Academy 2016 was especially focused on entrepreneurship and the workshop “EU Regions – Partners forYouth” was the successful try to build a bridge between young adult and European Institutions. The first AER programme, Eurodyssey was the opportunity to improve skills and experience for more than 13.000 young adults since 1985.

EEA Grants and Norway Grants focus also on that emergency. AER is in direct contact with the department in charge of the programme, to bring the insight of AER regions point of view. At the end of April, AER was the only European network taking part to a consultation as stakeholder among the European Commission, the Committee of the Regions and other European institutions to give its point of view on a new programme of the EEA and Norway Fund on regionalisation.

EEA Grants and Norway Grants

The Grant is the contribution of Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway to reduce economic and social disparities. The other overall objective of the grant is to strength cooperation, both transnational and bilateral with the donor countries.

The Grant is in line with the priorities set up by the Europe 2020 strategy and the EU cohesion policy, stressing the crucial role of regions and cross-border cooperation for smart, sustainable and inclusive growth.

The call for Active Youth

Youth employment issues are the core of the call. Transnational partnerships are the tool to tackle them. Transnational partnership is crucial to boost the mutual benefit of the close cooperation of different organisations characterised by their own skills, knowledge and experiences.

Projects can foresee activities in three areas:

  • Innovation and exploration
  • Transfer of know-how and good practice
  • Analysis and research

The call supports pioneering solutions and unconventional practices that especially combine the three areas. The Call for Proposals presents some of the successful projects funded in the past.

Eligible organisations and target groups

The call is quite flexible in terms of types of eligible organisations. Public authorities of different institutional level, civic society organisations along with social partners, and business entities are part of the large spectrum of organisations that can take part of applications. Regions, associations of regions or organisations owned by regions are among the eligible organisations.

Those organisations need to involve young people, from 15 to 29 years old, with a special focus on the NEET group with more than 25 years old. Attention is given to vulnerable personal background or young coming from minorities.

Eligible countries

EEA and the Norway Grants focuses on countries whit considerable rate of youth employment, with rates up to 44%.

Eligible organisations that can lead the consortia have to be from one of those countries:

  • Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Poland, Czech Republic and Slovakia.
  • Hungary, Slovenia and Croatia. Romania, Bulgaria and Greece.
  • Portugal, Malta and Cyprus.

Organisations from Ireland, Italy and Spain can be part of the consortium. Expertise organisations from the other EU countries can join the consortia but not be funded by the grant.

How to apply and insights on finance

The transnational spirit should emerge since the design of the project. The application process is a two-step evaluation procedure. First the submission of a concept note then only shortlisted candidates will be invited to submit a full application.

The minimum budget for projects is € 1 million. The grant will finance maximum the 85% of the total budget of the project.

The call has some peculiarities. Applicants can decide on the duration of the project. There is no limit on the maximum number of beneficiary partners and non-governmental organisations can cover part of the contribution in the form of voluntary work.

Save the date: the deadline to submit electronically concept notes is 1st August 2017 (12:00 noon CET).

Please do not hesitate to get in touch with AER Secretariat  to take part to this funding opportunity.

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Are you searching for partners for the Erasmus+ KA3 call on social inclusion?

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AER is glad to propose you a good partner to join your project proposals within the Erasmus+ KA3 on Social inclusion through education, training and youth. If you are designing your project for one of the specific objectives in Lot 1 – Education and training, the Universidad Católica San Antonio de Murcia (UCAM) would be happy to join your consortium as additional partner.

UCAM is keen in working on Erasmus+ projects and AER is happy to continue supporting them in creating links and connections with potential other partners and lead applicants.

What can they offer?

The private Catholic University will contribute to the success of your project having specific expertise in the project cycle management. In particular, the International Project Office (OPRI) is an office responsible for the management of international research projects at UCAM. They are currently involved in projects within Horizon 2020 and Erasmus+ Sport Calls.

If you wish to involve UCAM in your project, please get in touch with AER Secretariat by 15th May at the latest (being the deadline to submit the project proposal on 22nd May at noon).

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Gain insight from the info day on social inclusion through education, training and youth

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AER is pleased to share with member regions and partners the outcomes of its participation to the Info Day organised by the European Commission and the Education, Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA) on 25th April in Brussels. The aim of the conference was to provide information on how to apply within the Call for Proposals on Social Inclusion through Education Training and Youth – EACEA/07/2017, beside the Applicant’s Guideline.

Despite many efforts through education and training, there are still many challenges to face like educational inequalities and youth unemployment. This call aims to raise the message that education should play stronger role in promoting shared values and educating active and responsible citizens, targeting all vulnerable segments of the society as well as all sectors, including non-formal education. AER is carefully following this source of funding being the topic aligned with the activities of its Committees and having already made available to its network key information to this regard. 

Suggestions to prepare a successful project proposal

  • Activities should be rather concrete than covering only exchanging of practices. It is key to demonstrate the capacity to generate impact also at a systemic level.
  • The project proposal should be coherent, clear and evidence-based. In addition, please keep it short and simple.
  • For the partnership is required a minimum of 4 organisations from different programme countries. Ensure that the partner involvement in the project proposal (work packages and budget) has been fully discussed and agreed. Involvement of cross-cutting sectors and non-formal education is strongly encouraged in this call.
  • Check out all the information available before starting to create your eForm and do not wait until the last minute before submitting it.
  • Check out Erasmus+ Project results to get inspiration from the good practices and success stories from past funded projects.

All information on this Call for Proposal, having the deadline on 22nd May at noon (CET),  are available on the EACEA webpage.

Please, have also a careful reading at the Info Days materials (agenda, presentations and videos).

If you wish to share your project idea and get some help in building your consortium, do not hesitate to get in touch with AER Secretariat.

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Successful event on EU funding for Turkey

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More than 100 participants from all across Turkey, including most AER Turkish members, took part in an event on EU funding on Thursday 4 May in Ankara.

The event was greatly hosted by Ankara Metropolitan municipality with AER as co-organiser. Wide participation was ensured thanks to the cooperation of the Turkish Ministry of EU affairs, the Association of Turkish municipalities and the Turkish interior ministry.

The opening speeches by the AER President, the Ankara Metropolitan Municipality Secretary General and the Vice President of AK Party in charge of Foreign affairs as well as the closing speech by the deputy head of the EU delegation to Turkey, were the occasion to state the will of both Turkey and the European Union to continue cooperating on useful projects and initiatives.

Areas of funding cooperation between Turkey and EU were highlighted by the Turkish Ministry of EU affairs which gave an overview on the main EU programmes available to the Turkish partners and ways to successully apply to them.

AER presented the support and services provided to its members to access EU funds before four AER member regions (Denizli, Izmir, Sakarya, Gaziantep) shared best practices as project applicants.

Dr Hande Özsan Bozatli, AER President, stressed the uniqueness of AER in gathering so many Turkish local and regional representatives to help them share on European topics.

The work starts today and further actions are already planned for AER Turkish members. Stay tuned on our website and social media!

Agenda, presentations and pictures can be found on the event page HERE

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The 100 Climate Solutions Project Campaign

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Important issues were highlighted by local and regional leaders at the COP22 conference in Marrakech, the most urgent one: access to finance for cities and regions. To find solutions to this problem, AER participated, in June 2016, in the launch of the R20 “100 Climate Solutions Project Campaign”.

This initial launch was made possible by a grant the R20 received from the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation.

This worldwide campaign aimed to show investors that well-designed, geographically-balanced & green projects existed at subnational level. Little-to-no money is going to green projects at a subnational level partly because investors are not yet convinced that regions need help and can also deliver on high-quality projects.

AER’s role in the campaign was to identify serious regional green projects in Europe.

The campaign was much more successful than expected. Indeed, thanks to the support from numerous networks of cities and regions, and other organisations (ORU-FOGAR, ICLEI, FMDV, GIB, SALGA, TGO, ISWA, Gold Standard, ARC, BG, among others), the consortium led by R20 identified more than 650 green infrastructure projects, 36 of which came from AER member regions.

A first selection had to be made based on certain criteria, such as field of activities, objectives, expected impacts and results, CAPEX and return on investments. After an initial selection, some 400 projects were made public on the R20 website, where the project summaries can be downloaded (here).

We understand that many of you have been patiently waiting for an update on the campaign, and we thank you for your patience.

Now that we have collectively shown investors that high-quality projects exist, there is an increasing interest in investing in green projects at subnational level. The initiative is therefore going in the right direction but will not happen overnight.

AER is continuously working with its partner R20 to build an environment in which investors will help finance your projects.

 

The following positive steps have been achieved:

Training: together with the R20 we will soon be providing interested civil servants with two-day training sessions, allowing them to structure their projects in line with standards and requirements set by development banks and investors. These training sessions will also give regional projects exclusive access to the new SOURCE software to better prepare and present their projects to maximise access to international funding, including development banks, development finance institutions, private equity, pension funds, sovereign funds, etc. To know more about this please see HERE.

R20 and AER will offer such trainings during 2018. Algeria and South Africa have already benefited from such training sessions in March and April 2017.

Additionally, R20, with a number of top engineering infrastructure companies, has created dedicated Pre Investment Facilities (PIFs or project preparation facilities) on waste, renewable energy and energy efficiency. The best pre-structured projects will benefit from direct support for feasibility studies, thus fast-tracking the best projects to bankability.

Financing: AER, the European Investment Bank and the R20 are working together to facilitate access to European funds for European regions. Furthermore, an MOU has been signed between the R20 and an Impact Investment Fund Manager (Blue Orchard), to structure a first dedicated 350 Million USD fund. This fund will allow co-investment in the equity first loss junior tranche. In other words, this will allow final selected projects, among which some of the 36 European projects from AER members, to go to financial close and therefore unlock debt senior tranche, at best interest rates.

All of this may seem to be a long process, but it is the most efficient way to fast-track and develop large green infrastructure projects at sub-national level, hopefully making this business-as-usual in the coming years.

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“SOURCE” is launched in Washington

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On Wednesday 19 April at the World Bank headquarters in Washington, AER, R20 and other allies took part in the Sustainable Infrastructure Foundation annual meeting.

The aim of the event was the launch of a global scale software that supports the preparation of high quality infrastructure projects in a transparent and efficient way. This new tool, named SOURCE, will help regions submit projects, in one recognised and standardised format by all development banks and will therefore facilitate access to finance.

AER was invited to represent subnational governments in Europe and was represented by AER vice president treasurer Magnus Berntsson. Following COP22 in Marrakech, AER was one of the main partners of R20 and the Leonardo Di Caprio foundation in their mission to identify 100 renewable energy, energy efficiency and waste management infrastructure projects around the world.

In his speech, Mr Berntsson pointed out that AER identified 36 of the targeted 100 projects from a wide variety of regions, including Italy, Portugal, Serbia, Switzerland, Turkey and Sweden.

This exercise of project identification was successful and attracted 36 well-designed projects in only 3 weeks in the middle of the summer. This is because regions have portfolios of green projects ready. Projects that only need to secure financing to be put into practice. On top of the 36 European projects, another 600 projects from the rest of the world were received by the R20-led coalition.

This sent a strong message to investors: strong subnational green projects do exist and await investments. To learn more about the campaign, click here.

Magnus Berntsson also declared : “European regions are diverse. Some are very well connected to Brussels and to the way that the European Investment Bank and European Commission are working. It is therefore reasonably easy for them to take advantage of pubic investment resources available for green infrastructure projects, through for instance EFSI, a part of the Junker investment plan.

However, many other regions are simply unable to invest in training their civil servants. This is part of the reason why they are doing so poorly in attracting the European funds they are entitled to. The SOURCE training that will be made available after the Washington event will help in that respect”.

The following declaration was signed by Mr Berntsson, on behalf of AER, in Washington, marking the will of subnational governments throughout the world to be considered as key and trustworthy partners to attract further green financing. Click here to see the declaration.

To learn more about the AER/R20 cooperation please click here.

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Updates on MOCHA project: events, newsletters and outcomes

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Time flies. The MOCHA project (Models of Child Health Appraised) team have already carried out many tasks and initiatives. Updates on the recent work has been published in March and AER wish to share it with member regions and partners. Moreover, in April the project reached its mid-point and initial results of the analysis carried out were presented at the 64th Working Group on the Quality of Childhood (QoC) hosted by MEP Hannu Takkula (Group of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe, Finland) at the European Parliament on 11 April.

Newsletter March 2017: In January, the 18-Month report was submitted to the EC as a requirement of their funding and base for strengthening their inter-project working. MOCHA project was presented at ALEC – Arctic Light E-Health Conference on 1-2 February, in Lulea, northern Sweden. The DIPEx team carried out interviews of children and young people which provided a valuable insight into primary care service and had an International Meeting in London on 13th and 14th March to discuss data from interviews and to start the final DIPEx patient experience report. WP1 is coming to its end: the Final Report of D6 has been submitted to the EC in February. From now on, focus will be WP9 on producing evidence- based optimum models and a toolkit for improving primary care across Europe. WP5 was completed with a report on the Quality Measures and Data Sources Workshop, summarising the work done so far. The External Advisory Board had a meeting on 21st and 22nd  March in Malta for further progress of co-working between WPs: new joint WP groups were established. Further work will be the final conclusions at the end of 2018 as well as working on the dissemination of the first results.

64th QoC Workshop on “Primary Health Care for Children in Europe. Similarities and Differences between Countries – what do they Mean? Interim findings of the Models Of Child Health Appraised (MOCHA) Horizon 2020 Project” – WORKING GROUP ON THE QUALITY OF CHILDHOOD AT THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT (QOC):  it took place in Brussels on 11th April 2017 and it was aimed at presenting and discussing the initial findings of primary health care for children in Europe. The QoC Talk Session and its post session were about exchanges of these initial findings and reflections. Findings were presented by Professor Michael Rigby and Dr. Denise Alexander, respectively the Deputy Leader and Research Coordinator of the MOCHA project representing the lead partner, Imperial College London (UK). The discussion was led by Professor Michael Rigby and Michiel Matthes, Chairman of the Alliance for Childhood European Network Group. As a member of the External Advisory Board, AER attended the QoC Talk Session where we had the possibility to have fruitful exchanges with Ms Shanti George from the Learning for Well-being Community as well as with Ms Tinna Ros Steinsdottir from Eurochild Secretariat.

BACKGROUND INFORMATION IN A NUTSHELL

What is MOCHA project?

The project appraises the models of children’s health care through a number of different work packages. The varied combined approaches provide a rounded and robust analysis of the models of primary health care for children that exist in Europe. The disciplines encompassed by the project include medicine, nursing, economics, informatics, sociology and policy management. It is funded by the European Commission through the Horizon 2020 Framework, began on June 2015 and will continue until November 2018. AER is a member of the External Advisory Board and had set up a focus group to follow the project developments closely and ensure AER members benefit of it.

What are the aims and activities?

MOCHA project wish to help every child benefit from optimum health care, by performing a systematic, scientific evaluation of the types of health care that exist. To this extent, 20 scientific teams, from 11 European countries and Australia, Switzerland and the United States, were established. Gathering data and capturing current scenarios around primary care models were carried out in the first year. In the second year, the MOCHA team is analysing these data previously gathered from 30 countries of the EU/EEA via a country agent in each country.

Cohesion of different approaches and quality measures of optimal models of child primary health care are the goals of the project for a better-understanding and to avoid any cross-tensions between those. Different tasks were organised through 11 Work Packages and 64 internal deliverables, starting on 2015.

 

Do you wish to get an insight through the previous newsletters?

  1. Newsletter 2015 December: Researchers were recruited for the scientific team. Meetings and teleconferences of country agents, partners, guests and the External Advisory Board were held, starting in September. The first deliverable on designing guidelines, logo and the website to the European Commission (EC) was completed. Questions were sent out to all country agents to identify models of primary health care for child in October and December.
  2. Newsletter 2016 March: An internal workshop was organised in Rome on 24th February to further discuss measures of quality of child health models. In February, D2 ‘Systematic Review and Meta-analysis of the Literature’ was conducted by the CNR Institute of Neuroscience (CNR-IN) in Padua (Italy) to give an overview of a framework describing model type and key elements in EU Member States, Norway and Iceland as well as selecting different aspects of children’s primary care. The first scientific deliverable was submitted on 1st March 2016.
  3. Newsletter 2016 June: In April, the Slovakian country agent, Jozef Suvada (St Elizabeth University in Bratislava) hosted the External Advisory Board six-monthly meeting in which work packages worked together and identified synergies between each focus area. The Greek country agent, Dr Pania Karnaki represented MOCHA in Timisoara (Romania) at the meeting of the Assembly of European Regions (AER). AER has set up a focus group led by Dr Marta Tatar, County Councillor of Covasna (Romania), which follows the project. Updates on D2 were made by adding information on ASD and asthma in May. An internal literature review were also on 31st May for the first draft of the UML Modelling of health system processes (D6). Further meetings of internal deliverables were carried out for Work Package 1, 2, 4 and 5.
  4. Newsletter 2016 September: Internal deliverable meetings were carried out on D6 Current Models of Primary Care in May and WP5’s work led to the compilation and cataloguing the identified data sets in Europe. WP5 has resulted in the collaboration of MIROI database and the European Medical Information Framework (EMIF) project in order to create an online MOCHA repository on the EMIF platform. Deliverable 3 (7.1) and D4 (8.1) were both submitted to the EC. A workshop for WP9 was organised on 23rd August in Leiden (the Netherlands), hosted by Dr Paul Kocken, resulting in the validated optimal models of children’s prevention-orientated primary health care.
  5. Newsletter 2016 December: The second Annual General Meeting of the MOCHA project took place in Rome on the 20th October, hosted by the Department of Social Sciences and Humanities at CNR. The focus was on the increased collaboration between work packages. WP4 workshop was held for discussing and identifying the measures of quality and outcome that can be used by all research strands in the project in Padua (Italy) on the 10-11th October. WP5 has identified 147 anonymised case based primary care data sets in Europe.The focus of WP2 Workshop held on 30th November-1st December in Dublin was on how to appraise primary health care as well as how to extend our knowledge of the under-researched area of the interface between primary care services and other health services for children with complex care needs. By the end of November, D5 The Semantic Models of Key Clinical Conditions and Outcome Measures was completed to the EC.

Are you interested to attend the forthcoming events?

  • Conference of Medical Informatics Europe / Informatics for Health (24-26 April, Manchester) where Professor Michael Rigby, Dr Grit Kühne and Dr Daniela Luz will represent MOCHA project
  • MOCHA workshop on the Integration of health and social care for children with complex health conditions, an assessment of the policy and organisational context led by Dr Austin Warters from Trinity College Dublin at the International Conference on Integrated Care (8-10 May, Dublin)
  • European Health Management Association Conference on topics of Child Migrant Health Policy, E-Health Policy for Children, and Measurement of the Strength of Children’s Primary Care (13-15 June, Milan)
  • MOCHA workshop led by Professor Mitch Blair at the European Forum for Primary Care Conference (24-26 September, Porto)
  • DIPEx session on lessons learned about primary care from their interviews with children and young people at the International Society for Quality and Safety in Healthcare (ISQua) in London (1-4 October, London)

To lear more about MOCHA project and subscribe the newsletter, please visit MOCHA website.

The contact person at AER for MOCHA project is Johanna Pacevicius.

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