Local Development Programme: RSDF launched the small grant scheme "Access to financing"

 On February 5, 2019, the Romanian Social Development Fund (RSDF), as the Programme Operator of the Programme “Local Development, Poverty Reduction and Enhanced Roma Inclusion” (Local Development), funded by the EEA and Norway Grants 2014-2021, launched the small grant scheme "Access to financing".

The grant scheme aims to increase the capacity of local authorities to obtain funding for implementing the measures foreseen in local development strategies and plans, targeting local development and poverty reduction in poor, isolated, marginalized communities. In this context, through the small grants scheme, the RSDF will finance the development of technical documentation for the realization of community investments, consisting in the construction / extension / rehabilitation / modernization of the social infrastructure (projects related to infrastructure for social services, education, health, employment), the water supply infrastructure (projects aimed at ensuring the water supply of the units providing social services), the sewerage infrastructure (projects for wastewater evacuation for the units providing social services), roads, bridges and footbridges (projects focusing on roads of county or local interest, bridges and footbridges that facilitate disadvantaged groups access to social services), respectively housing (projects targeting social housing).

Eligible Project Promoters are local government authorities, respectively communes, cities (including municipalities) and counties with rural or small-urban marginalized communities (up to 20,000 inhabitants) inhabited by people at risk of poverty or social exclusion, which will benefit from the investments to be made through the subsequent financing to be obtained by the beneficiaries of the grant scheme.

In total, the amount allocated to this grant scheme is € 1,000,000 and comes from EEA Grants 2014-2021 (85%) and public co-financing (15%). The minimum grant amount that can be claimed is 5,000 euro and the maximum is 40,000 euro. The deadline for submitting projects is April 24, 2019. The relevant documents are available on www.frds.ro.