Authors: Maja Pupovac and Ilija Jovančević
Source: European Climate Initiative (EUKI), EUKI.de
On 27 April 2021, RES Foundation hosted its initial workshop with the representatives of the municipality of Priboj, Serbia, and began preparatory works on the municipality’s Development Plan. The workshop brought together the municipality’s highest officials who will, alongside RES Foundation, be responsible for coordinating the process of preparing the municipality’s Development Plan.
Priboj’s Development Plan
The Development Plan is a key, long-term planning document that is mandatory for each municipality in Serbia. A limited number of priority goals set in it will be incremental in steering the municipalities’ future development. Priboj has embarked on preparing this document as its Council has adopted a Decision on Plan’s development. This document will underline Priboj’s future transformative actions and streamline the further rural transition. RES Foundation will provide support by guiding the municipalities personnel and ensuring the broad participation of different stakeholders.
To raise the capacities of local stakeholders, including the decision-makers, and to gather some preliminary data, RES Foundation has organized a workshop only several days following the Council’s decision. The workshop participants included:
- Local decision-makers;
- Members of the civil society sector;
- International partners who are also taking part in the “GreenRuralDeal” project.
The attendees were given an overview of the Serbian planning system and future actions regarding developing the Priboj’s Development Plan. The following part of the workshop was dedicated to collecting information, as representatives of RES Foundation first shared their insights on strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats to the municipality’s development. Following this, local attendees were allowed to share their observation and expand on the initial analysis. In the aftermath of the workshop, all local attendees have graded the workshop as beneficial and noted that they had gained some new knowledge.
The workshop was also an opportunity to premiere RES Foundation’s video, in which we asked the local stakeholders: “Priboj without fossil fuels until 2030 – Do we have a deal?”