08-07-2022 09:59
Today July 8th 2022, The Programme Operator of Programme “Local development, poverty reduction and enhanced inclusion of vulnerable groups”, funded by the EEA Financial Mechanism 2014-2021, has announced a call for project proposals for the “Job creation” Small grants scheme.
The small grants scheme will support innovative approaches aimed at boosting the economic activity and generating jobs in the targeted areas. This small grants scheme is exclusively targeted at the 10 pre-selected municipalities in Bulgaria:
Valchi dol, Levski, Ivanovo, Dimitrovgrad, Bansko, Brezovo, Belitsa, Elena, Momchilgrad, Lyaskovets.
Funding will be allocated for testing and promoting innovative approaches to local employment development, for providing more accessible information about job vacancies, for encouraging employers to adopt flexible working practices, for organising events that bring employers and jobseekers together and creating job opportunities for disadvantaged groups. Support will also be provided for the implementation of measures included in the local development strategies[1] developed by the 10 municipalities within Project “Growth Through Local Capacity Building (GALOP)”.
Total call budget: 3,523,000 (three million five hundred twenty three thousand) Euro
The amount of funding is from 5,000 EUR to 200,000 EUR, and the minimum and maximum amount may have additional restrictions, depending on the selected categories of activities included in the project proposals.
The implementation of the project activities shall be completed not later than April 30th, 2024.
Eligible applicants (project promoters) and partners
Eligible applicants
Any entity, public or private, commercial or non-commercial and non-governmental organisations, established as a legal person in Bulgaria. The applicant’s official registration is not mandatory to be in the selected municipalities but they must commit to developing business and creating jobs in the municipalities Valchi dol, Levski, Ivanovo, Dimitrovgrad, Bansko, Brezovo, Belitsa, Elena, Momchilgrad, Lyaskovets.
Each applicant may submit up to two different project proposals.
Eligible partners from Bulgaria
Any public or private entity, commercial or non-commercial, as well as non-governmental organisations established as a legal person in Bulgaria.
IMORTANT! Partnerships between private and public entities (the public entities from the respective municicpality) will be strongly encouraged. They will receive more points during the evaluation of the project proposal based on the quality, participation and the level of contribution to achieving the project results. A signed Partnership Agreement or a Letter of Intent detailing the participation, the contribution and the engagement of the partner in achieving the project results submitted with the Application Form is needed to assess the partnership.
There is no limit to the number of project proposals in which the local municipal administration and the local administrative units of the respective state administration may participate as partners.
All other organisations may be partners in up to three project proposals.
Other Eligible partners
Any public or private entity, commercial or noncommercial, as well as non-governmental organisations established as a legal person either in the Donor States, Beneficiary States or a country outside the European Economic Area that has a common border with the respective Beneficiary State, or any international organisation or body or agency thereof, actively involved in, and effectively contributing to, the implementation of a project, are considered eligible project partners, pursuant to Article 7.2.2 of the Regulation on the implementation of the EEA FM.
IMPORTANT!
- Applicants/partners active in the fishery and aquaculture sector,
- Applicants/partners active in the sector of processing and marketing of agricultural products (in the following cases: where the amount of the aid is fixed on the prices or quantities of such products purchased from primary producers or put on the market by the undertakings concerned; where the aid is conditional on being partly or entirely passed on to primary producers),
- Applicants/partners active in the primary production of agricultural products,
are eligible only if they are active also in other sectors, in addition to the abovementioned sectors.
Applicants/partners shall indicate in the Application Form the code of their economic activity according to the Classification of Economic Activities (CEA-2008). Provided that the main activity of the applicants/partners is in the fisheries and aquaculture sector, the processing and trading of agricultural products or the primary production of agricultural products sector, they shall prove that they also have a secondary activity that is not related to the main one.
In respect of the eligible sectors or activities, the applicant/partner shall ensure, by appropriate methods, such as separation of activities or distinction of costs, that the activities in the sectors excluded from the scope of this procedure do not benefit from the de minimis aid granted under this call
The deadline for application is September 20th, 2022 until 17:30 h.
The Application Guidelines and the related documents are published in UMIS 2020:
https://eumis2020.government.bg/bg/s/Procedure/Info/ca457c23-2ead-47c7-abb5-3b4717444435
The Programme Operator of “Local development, poverty reduction and enhanced inclusion of vulnerable groups” Programme funded by the EEA Financial Mechanism 2014-2021, will hold an Information Day for which more detailed information will be provided on the official website and Facebook page of the Programme. The event will explain to potential applicants the technical details of the application guidelines.