Several Municipalities and Cities from the Republic of Moldova, Including Cahul and Cimișlia from the Development Region South, Receive Support from Poland as Part of an Urban Revitalization Project

The "Supporting Public Administration in Moldova in the Implementation of Regional Policy through Integrated Urban and Sustainable Development for 2017-2019" project is currently being implemented in all regions of the country, with the support of the Government of the Republic of Poland. It offers assistance for local growth and development to several Moldovan municipalities and cities.

The project is carried out in three stages. At the first stage, the working groups were created, the members are the representatives of the municipalities, the Regional Development Agencies and the Ministry of Agriculture, Regional Development and Environment. Later, the local elected representatives and other specialists were trained and shared experience and good practice in the field of urban revitalization.

At the third stage, the involved LPAs will develop project concepts to participate in a competition and will obtain funding from the Government of the Republic of Poland.

The launched project aims to create an efficient system for supporting efficient urban development and renewal of cities, abbreviated as "Revitalization of the Municipalities of the Republic of Moldova".

Thereby, at the national and regional level, technical assistance and public policy advice will be provided in order to develop tools and mechanisms for the city development, as well as their implementation. At the local level, through counselling and training / capacity development, urban revitalization programs elaboration and project implementation are being pursued.

At the first stage of the project, policy ideas and urban development mechanisms will be reviewed and developed, then, revitalization programs and projects for the selected cities will be developed during the second stage.

At this moment, 15 localities are participating at the project: 10 municipalities and 5 cities, including Cahul,Căușeni and Cimișlia from the Development Region South. It is planned to select about 10 city revitalization projects in the contest which will be organized at the second stage of the project.

The project participants will benefit of trainings, study visits to Poland and counselling from Polish experts in developing and implementing local urban revitalisation projects.

The project is based on a participatory approach - involving all relevant stakeholders. The fundamental outcome of the project will be a functional operational system for dynamic urban development and city revitalization.

The project is implemented through the Ministry of Economic Development of the Republic of Poland in collaboration with the Information Center for Local Authorities (ICLA - Solidarity Fund PL in the Republic of Moldova) and the Ministry of Agriculture, Regional Development and Environment in partnership with the Regional Development Agencies of the Republic of Moldova and city municipalities from Moldova.

According to the Polish law, „Revitalization is the process of moving degraded urban areas out of the recessionary state. This process should be led in a complex way, through the integrated activities undertaken in the favour of local community, spatial order and economy. Activities should be territorially concentrated and conducted by the stakeholders of revitalization, based on the revitalization program."

The pillars of the revitalization process in Poland are "people", complemented by legal and policy frameworks, funding mechanisms and knowledge transfer (pilot projects, exchange of good practices, training, etc.). In addition to the benefits of revitalization, the basic benefit should be improvement of the quality of citizens' life.