BACID Fund

BACID Fund

What is BACID Fund

Funding facility financed by the Austrian Development Agency (ADA) and managed by the Austrian Association of Cities and Towns (AACT) and KDZ (Public Administration Research Center). It supports small actions of exchange of knowledge between Austrian entities and partners in the countries of the Western Balkans and the Republic of Moldova..

What is the objective of BACID Fund?

In the second phase, BACID aims at strengthening the capacities of the entities in the non-EU countries of the Western Balkans and Moldova within economic, environmental and social pillars of sustainable development with a strong focus on equity as the main elements of the Agenda 2030 though introduction of related EU policies and standards.

Following previous experiences of “new” EU member countries, the peer-to-peer approach and transfer of know-how was identified as the most successful tool in gaining practical knowledge, therefore the set objective is to be achieved through exposure to Austrian know-how and inter-sectoral partnership. The added value of the BACID programme is that it fills the gap between the predefined targeted interventions of the EU and other donors at one side, and emerging tailor-made current needs of the beneficiaries to be addressed through mentoring and practical experience.

In the first phase of the BACID programme, the objective was to strengthen capacities of the authorities in the non-EU countries of the Western Balkans and Moldova in order to introduce and implement EU acquis relevant to local and regional governments. This will be achieved by building structures and cooperation for promotion of the process of democratization and regional development.

What topics are covered by BACID Fund?

The overall theme is the contribution to the 17 Sustainable Development Goals integrated in the latest EU policies, as the framework for long-term transformation of the Western Balkan countries.

The actions need to be connected to the SDGs, whereby priority is given to SDG 11 (making cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable). The targets covered by all other SDGs are also eligible. These themes include a wide range of topics related to economic and social development, environmental protection as well as building strong institutions and partnerships.

For more reference to specific SDGs and its implementation by the European Union please visit the following pages:
https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/sustainable-development-goals
https://ec.europa.eu/info/strategy/international-strategies/sustainable-development-goals_en.

In that direction, the actions have to comprise the transfer of know-how in the application of European standards covered by the EU accession negotiation chapters.

The BACID Fund supports multi-sectoral partnership in the country, i.e. between public institutions at national and local levels, public institutions with CSOs as well as the academic and business sector, as it is crucial for successfully localizing SDGs.

The actions that bring innovation to the country, in terms of enabling public administration to introduce and support innovative techniques and methods around achieving the SDGs, will be assessed as highly relevant.

In addition, brief information about the Programme and its components:
BACID Programme Leaflet
BACID Fund 3rd CALL Info (English)
BACID Fund 3rd CALL Info (German)