[vufo]

Website: http://www.uepp.org

The Urban Environmental Planning Programme (UEPP-VN) is a development cooperation between the European Commission and the Government of Viet Nam that has an overall objective to improve the quality of urban planning as a contribution to enhancing the state of environment of provincial cities in Viet Nam. The Programme has been implemented over 4 years (2005-2009) through 3 components that are Small Grant Projects (SGPs), Capacity Building and Training (CBT), and Networking and Institutional Strengthening (NIS).

The SGP component is intended to provide opportunities for the provincial cities and towns in Mekong Delta region (MDR) to increase local awareness and planning capacity to find sustainable solutions to urban environmental problems which directly benefit the local groups especially the poor households. A grant of 2.9 millions euros is used to finance local projects that are local initiative, potentially good model and environmentally diverse. These projects are proposed by the local consortia (groups of urban government, line agencies, massive organs, enterprises etc.) for grant through a competitive Call for Proposals (CfP) and two selection stages.

After a road show about CfP and eligible applicants in all MDR provinces during October 2005-February 2006, the first stage started by a National Conference 25 February 2006 in Can Tho to call for submission of project Concept Note. By May 2006 there were 32 Concept Notes (short application) were received and 16 of them were shortly listed by the Programme Task Force (PTF) Evaluation Committee for full application in the 2nd stage during June-August 2006.

In November 2006 there were 10 best projects chosen according to the selection criteria and approved for grant by the Programme Steering Committee of Ministry of Construction and European Commission Delegation. After signing the grant contracts, from December 2006 to March 2009 the local Consortia have been fully responsible for implementing 10 projects using the decentralized ex-post mechanism. The PTF plays a contracting and assisting role in the SGP implementation process.