Montenegro

New set of interventions to support Montenegro’s striving for environmental best on its path to the EU

Podgorica, 3 September 2009

Representatives of German Technical Cooperation (GTZ) and UNDP Montenegro agreed to facilitate coordination and cooperation in the area of sustainable economic development in Montenegro. Mr. Thomas Waldraff, Country Director of GermanTechnical Cooperation (GTZ) and Mr. Alexander Avanessov, UNDP Resident Representative to Montenegro signed a Memorandum of Understanding agreeing to become strategic partners in the analysis, design, implementation of interventions that would most effectively support Montenegro in reaching its goal to achieve the status of an Ecological State. 

“GTZ as one of the German implementing agencies  in Montenegro are certainly ready and happy to go down that road. We have done the sectorization already before, with the previous highest representatives of UNDP and their team, especially in the field of physical planning. Signing of this MoU makes now a lot of sense because we are about to set up a framework which will include all the relevant sectors, and we will use the framework to join efforts concretely,“ said Mr. Thomas Waldraff, GTZ Country Director.

“We are looking forward to harmonizing and joining efforts with GTZ to support Montenegro in this particular way,” Mr. Alexander Avanessov, UNDP Resident Representative to Montenegro said. “At a certain point we will devote ourselves to contributing towards coordination of donor assistance with other foreign partners and with the Government of Montenegro. We believe that development of SMEs, private sector development, promotion of active employment scheems, assistance in other areas like tourism and agriculture, etc. – actually the topics of concern in the memorandum that we just signed – give a good basis for growing an idea to create a special donor coordination group that woul jointly work on further operationalization of actions in the mentioned sectors, especially in the North of Montenegro,“ Mr. Avanessov concluded.

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Specifically, the GTZ and UNDP Montenegro will cooperate through:

• Strenghtened bottom-of-the-pyramid private sector, SME development, and active employment schemes, with a specific focus on tourism and agriculture;
• Increased competitiveness of the renewable energy sector and energy efficiency; and
• Capacity development for national and municipal authorities in implementing the principles of sustainability in spatial planning.