Providing national co-financing - a successful approach in Latvia for the implementation of LIFE projects

The trainings under project LIFE14 CAP / BG / 000013 - CAPTA BG continue implementation in February. Representatives of the NCP and RCP-Bulgaria met with the two representatives of the NCP of Latvia as well as part of the team of CAP LIFE LAT project "Capacity building for the LIFE Program implementation in Latvia".

During the working visit, the two teams discussed the achieved results, the challenges and the forthcoming activities on capacity building projects in the both countries.

The shared experience of NCP-Latvia on the co-financing of LIFE projects was of substantial importance. Since 2000, with few exceptions, the source of co-financing was the Latvian Environmental Fund of the Ministry of the Environment, but from 2011 co-financing is provided by the national budget. The provision of financial resources has significantly influenced the submission of project proposals under the program and the statistics indicates that 4 projects were co-financed in 2011, while in 2017 the total number was 17. The main difficulty in providing national co-financing was the preparation of a justification for the necessary funds and its defense before the Ministry of Finance.

NCP-Bulgaria plans to perform an analysis of the benefits of providing national co-financing of projects that support the implementation of environmental policies.