Office for South East Europe European Commission / The World Bank

Note on the Status as of December 31, 2000 of Pledges to the March 2000 Regional Funding Conference for South-Eastern Europe

(99% of pledged funds reporting)

May 2001

This document is also available in PDF format (222 KB)

Skip to tables (pdf, 59 KB)

 Key / List of Project Numbers and Titles (pdf, 70 KB)

This note provides an assessment of the situation based on returns¹ covering some 99% (€2.39 billion) of the funds pledged at the Regional Funding Conference for South East Europe. We still await finalised reports from 3 of the 25 bilateral donors covering pledges amounting to €14.62 million.

Preliminary Conclusions

Preliminary conclusions are that in the nine months since the March conference:

• Donors made good progress in committing pledged funds to specific projects in all Tables. Out of the total pledges of €2.4 billion, donors report that €2.7 billion has now been committed to regional projects (ie, €300 million more than the original pledge). Out of this €2.7 billion, €1.69 billion had been committed to Quick Start Projects.

• Donors also report significant commitments to support projects not included on the Quick Start list. These currently total €1.08 billion. Much of this financing has been committed to Near term projects. The amount of commitments to Near Term projects is reported as €0.59 billion.

• Many donors have also allocated a proportion of their pledged funds to their own projects covering Stability Pact themes in the region but which are separate from the Stability Pact Quick Start list of selected projects. The total amount of funds allocated in this way is significant, representing 20% (€0.49 billion) of reported pledged funds.

• In total, 33% (€0.52) billion of firm commitments to Quick Start projects had already been contracted by December 31, 2000. Without the infrastructure sector, more than 50% of firm commitments had been contracted.

• The amount recorded as actually spent on Stability Pact projects by December 31, 2000 was €0.32 billion. This means that 20% of firm commitments had been disbursed.

Comparison to the last polling exercise

Since the last time the Joint Office carried out this exercise (data as of June 30, 2000), overall commitments to Quick Start projects in all working tables have increased by 6% ( €103 million). For Working Table I, Commitments have increased from €338 million to €361 million. Working Table 2 commitments have increased from €1,198 million to €1,282 million while commitments to Working Table 3 have remained the same at €54 million. Significant progress has also been made since June 2000 in contracting and spending committed funds, which have doubled and tripled respectively.

Indicative commitments to Quick Start projects, as of December 31, 2000, stood at €131.40 million, down from €460 million reported in June 2000. Firm commitments reached €1,567 million, which is an increase of €470.60 million since reporting in June 2000.

Figures 1-2 summarise the current status of commitments, contracts and spending on the Quick Start and Near Term Package, as of December 31, 2000 and covering 99% of the overall pledge:

Working Tables: observations

• As of December 31, 2000, Working Table 1 (Democratisation and Human Rights) had commitments to Quick Start projects totalling €363 million, which exceed the originally requested amounts by category. This result should be measured against the fact that the list of Working Table 1 projects was significantly revised after the Regional Funding Conference. In particular the number of projects on the list was almost doubled to 120.

The graph below shows the evolution in commitments, contracts and spending on Quick Start projects and programs in Working Table 1 since the previous polling exercise carried out by the Joint Office in June 2000. In particular, commitments to Working Table 1 have increased by 7% and donors report good progress in disbursing their assistance. In total, three quarters of committed funds (€273 million) have been contracted and half (€178 million) actually spent on the projects.

Several projects in Working Table 1, however, remained completely unfunded by the end of December (20 of the 120 projects in Working Table 1). In June last year, only 10 projects were reported as unfunded which suggests that some indicative commitments to these projects may have been reallocated to other projects.

• Donor reporting for Working Table 2 (Economic Reconstruction, Development and Cooperation) shows that by the end of December 2000 commitments were generally equal to or higher than the identified requirements for four of the six categories: trade, infrastructure, environment and social development. The social development sector appears to be overfunded but this is due to the fact that this sector includes a number of new projects which were added to the list several months after the Regional Funding Conference. Commitments to the economic reforms and business development sector, however, remain €110 million less than the requirement of €290 million.

Overall, donors reported an extra €84 million in commitments to Working Table 2 since June, 2000 and indicate that good progress has been made in contracting and spending these commitments. Moreover, since June 2000, the total contracted figure has increased almost threefold to €217 million and total spending has increased fivefold to €126 million. Further details are provided in a separate report.⁵

• As of December 31, 2000 Working Table 3 (Security Issues) had commitments totalling €54 million, which is equal to the commitments reported in June 2000. This means that Working Table 3 remains underfunded by approximately €25 million, with seven out of 33 projects completely unfinanced. Donors have made significant progress, however, in contracting and spending their commitments. In June 2000, donors reported that less than €1 million had been spent on projects in Working Table 1; this has now increased to just short of €14 million.

Attachments: (pdf, 120 KB)

Table 1: Donor Commitments, Contracting and Spending for Stability Pact Quick Start Projects as of December 31, 2000
Table 2: Donor Commitments, Contracting and Spending for Specific Stability Pact Quick Start Projects as of December 31, 2000
Table 3: Summary of Firm Commitments, Contracting and Spending for Stability Pact Quick Start Projects as of December 31, 2000

¹ This report is based on a polling exercise initiated by the Joint Office in January 2001. In total 24 bilateral donors and 6 international organisations were sent detailed sectorial and project level reporting forms. Data was received through April 2001 and has been summarised in this report.

² As presented to the March Regional Funding Conference.

³ This includes both indicative and firm commitments as of December 30, 2000.

⁴ These figures include commitments by the countries of the region to these projects, reported by Lead Agencies to be €259.7 million.

⁵ Joint Office Report on Stability Pact infrastructure projects: implementation status as of end-March 2001.