EG Chairs and ITAs
Twentieth Meeting (enlarged)
Gdansk, Poland
26 February 2016
Title / Minutes from the 20th EG Chairs & ITAs meeting (enlarged)Submitted by / Secretariat
Summary / Note / This document outlines the main discussion points and decisions made during the 20th EG Chairs and ITAs meeting.
List of Annexes / Annex 1 – List of participants
Annex 2 – List of documents submitted to the meeting
1.Welcome and opening of the meeting
The meeting wasopened and chaired by Mr. Jürgen Ojalo, the NDPHS Chair Country Representative, Ministry of Social Affairs of Estonia. He thanked the NDPHS Secretariat for organizing and hosting the meeting.The Meeting expressed its appreciation for the co-financing provided by the Interreg Baltic Sea Region Programme 2014-2020 for the event.
The participants introduced themselves.
2. Adoption of the agenda
The Meeting adopted the Provisional agenda (submitted as document EG Chairs and ITAs 20/2/1).
3. Planning and implementing joint activities to achieve regionally agreed objectives
3.1 Development of Expert Group work plans
With reference to document EG Chairs and ITAs 20/3.1/1, the Secretariat introduced the proposed changes to the “Elements for the development of NDPHS EG/TG Annual Work Plans” which it planned to submit to the upcoming CSR 26 meeting for approval. During the presentation, it emphasized that the proposed changes reflected the adoption of the NDPHS Action Plan as well as the recent changes in the expert-level structures. Further, the Secretariat asked the groups to express their preference whether work plans should be annual or biennial. To that end, it stressed the importance of work plans to help ensure successful implementation of the Action Plan.
The HIV, TB&AI EG Chair strongly supported the idea of developing annual work plans.
The nominated ASA EG ITA reminded that the CSR had already taken a decision on this issue during its meeting in Stockholm and recalled the German argument, as anoriginator of that proposal, that work plans for two years would lower the groups’ reporting burden. In response, the Secretariat stated that the elements for the development of work plansneeded to be revised anyway in the light of the mentioned changes, which also presented an opportunity to carefully consider the issue of annual vs. biennial work plans so as to ensure that the Partnership’s mechanisms work best. The topic also needed to be seen in the context of the discussion about the reporting on achievements foreseen to take place later during the meeting – an issue which was also linked to the development of work plans. Already during the CSR meeting in Stockholm there were diverging opinions on this matter, which could not be discussed in detail due to limited amount of time available.
Following the nominated ASA EG ITA’s statement that it is not serious to change decisions every six months, the Secretariat noted that the format of this current meeting was more convenient for discussing the issue of work plans in more detail than the CSR. The CSR would then be informed about the conclusions and decide, as appropriate.
The nominated ASA EG ITA agreed to discuss the document, but not the question of whether work plans should be annual or biennial, and noted that if meeting participants had the same arguments already in Stockholm, this should have been mentioned there.
The PHC EG Chair announced that their group agreed to have an annual work plan, because there are no biennial work plans in management theory. Strategic plans should cover a period of five years and technical plan the period of one year. One-year plans are more effective for realization and monitoring.
The nominated OSH EG Chair stated that the group would develop annual work plans.
Sweden noted that those Expert Groups, which prefer biennial work plans, might also consider discussing what they will do in each of the two years and to deliver also annual sub-work plans.
The Chair suggested that it would be possible to leave it up to the groups if they want to have annual or biennial work plans.
In response, the Secretariat noted that this would be feasible, but that the groups should also consider that developing an annual work plan does not require a large amount of extra work, but provides a much better monitoring mechanism than biennial work plans, e.g. when it comes to the planning of group meetings. In conclusion, the Secretariat noted that it is also possible to name the document annual/biennial and work in that way.
The nominated ASA EG ITA noted that the work plans are requested to be submitted one month before the CSR meeting in October, meaning that Expert Group meetings need to be held in August, which is difficult. He, therefore, proposed to change the submission deadline from one month to ten days before the CSR meeting, so that the groups could discuss the work plans during their meetings in September.
While recognizing the problem, the Secretariat recalled that CSR meetings were usually not held in the beginning of October so as to give more room for EG meetings after the summer holiday season, and the groups were always encouraged to hold their meetings shortly after the EG Chairs and ITAs meetings that are held in late August or early September. The groups’ inputs would also be needed for the Secretariat to compile the work plan for the whole Partnership, which would only take a few days. Further, the Secretariat stressed that the key issues were that the CSR requires receiving documents at least two weeks before the meeting and that many Expert Groups usually did not meet the set deadlines. If the Secretariat could rely on timely inputs of the groups, three weeks before the CSR meeting would be sufficient.
The HIV, TB&AI EG Chair agreed that it could be difficult to find meeting dates in September and would therefore prefer a three week deadline.
If the deadline of three weeks had to be kept, the nominated ASA EG ITA suggested to not make the EG meeting a requirement,byremoving the notion of holding ameeting in the document, and with that to allow for the work plans to be developed through email communication.
In response, the Secretariat noted that a meeting was never a requirement and that for this reason the document stated “preferably during the autumn meetings of their groups.”
Further, the nominated ASA EG ITA asked what the Secretariat meant by “planned deliverables” added under each activity in the revised proposal.
The Secretariat responded that the planned deliverables should describe what would be achieved. In the Action Plan, activities, target and indicators were laid out, whereas in the work plan the steps that need to be taken to achieve them should be mentioned as deliverables. A deliverable could, for example, be a report.
The Chair invited the Secretariat to provide further clarifications and examples of deliverables to interested expert group representatives.[1]
Following a question from the nominated ASA EG ITA whether the Secretariat would also be using the same template to produce its annual work plan to report on its Action Plan and the projects it is leading, the Secretariat answered that the current meeting focus’ was on the Expert Groups, not on the Secretariat.
The Chair clarified that the Secretariat is developing the work plan for the whole Partnership, to which the Expert Groups’ plans are annexed.
Further, the Secretariat explained that since the Partnership is focusing on thematic areas, there was no specific objective (neither related targets and indictors) assigned to it in the Action Plan. Its role according to the Secretariat’s Terms of Reference was to support and coordinate the processes within the Partnership and also, to a more limited extend, to work on projects. On those projects the Secretariat reports annually to the donors. Moreover, the Secretariat reports to the CSR and Parties to the Agreement on the establishment of the Secretariat on its activities, also with reference to the horizontal results listed in the Action Plan. Following its statement the Secretariat circulated a copy of its Annual Report during the meeting.
The nominated ASA EG ITA announced he would submit written comments on the document.
The Meeting took note of the presented information and concluded that the work plans can be developed through online communication and should be submitted to the Secretariat three weeks prior to the CSR meeting. Further, the Meeting agreed to suggest a dual system of annual and biennial work plans for the CSR’s consideration and decision.
3.2 Project ideas aiming at the ENI funding
With reference to Annex 1 of document EG Chairs and ITAs 20/3.2/Info 1, the Secretariat briefly recalled the assessment of the ENPI/ENI funding received so far, which had been provided to the Partnership by the European Union.
Further, with reference to Annex 2 of the above document, the Secretariat thanked the groups who had submitted project ideas and informed that, following the CSR’s approval, they would be forwarded to the European Commission. A decision about possible funding could be expected to be taken in autumn 2016.
Norway commented that the presented proposals lack concreteness and health perspectives and would have to be improved to get sponsorship from the European Commission.
The OSH EG Chair highlighted that since the decision would be made only in autumn, the potential project could not be included in the EG’s work plan for 2016.
The Secretariat reflected on the lessons learned from the process that should be taken into account when developing final proposals, if invited by the European Commission. First, echoing the Norwegian comment, it highlighted that the groups inputs where rather general, but also that the instructions received from the Commission had been of very general nature. Also, the Secretariat was worried to see that only very few groups submitted ideas for this potential funding opportunity and asked the groups that did not present an idea to reveal what had prevented them from doing so. Further, with reference to an email received from Dr. Eduard Salakhov, which had been distributed to the meeting participants ahead of the meeting, the Secretariat highlighted that particular attention needs to be paid to the processes inside the Partnership in the future. It is crucial that project initiatives are properly coordinated within the groups and documents submitted by groups’ Chairpersons or ITAs, so that it is clear that the leadership supports the project.
In addition, the Secretariat reminded that a similar situation already appeared last year when a proposal was submitted to the Commission, which had not been discussed within the respective group. Later, it became clear that some countries did not support the project and opposed to be part of it. These kinds of problems needed to be avoided in the future to make sure that the Commission would agree to continue financially supporting projects developed by the NDPHS.
Estonia strongly supported that all project proposals needed to be discussed within the groups.
The nominated ASA EG ITA commented that Norway had already informed the Partners that it would not take part in and would not be committed to supporting the implementation of the project “Down with NCDs!” in any way.
The NCD EG Chair recalled the difficult and particular situation of developing a new project concept during the time of transition from the old to the new NCD EG leadership. The project would be discussed further within the group during the upcoming meeting, but the new leadership generally supported it and was glad it was endorsed by the CSR.
Following a question from the nominated ASA EG ITA about whether the project idea had been discussed with Belarus and if it was clear if Belarus wanted to be included in the project, the NCD EG Chair replied that there is a preliminary agreement and Belarus might participate, but that this was not yet a key question, because also other countries could participate instead of Belarus.
The Secretariat explained that the ENI funding, which this project is applying for, had been designed to foster collaboration between the EU and third countries, which means that in case Russia and Belarus do not participate in the project, it would have very poor chance of getting funded.
The Chair invited the meeting to take these requirements for ENI funding into account in the future.
The nominated ASA EG ITA recalled that during the CSR 26 meeting in Stockholm, Norway had asked that the CSR would not receive all project applications and revise them, but that the Secretariat should recommend projects proposals and only send out those recommended. But again, in this case, the Secretariat had sent all projects to all members of the CSR and asked them to check them, which is not in accordance with what Norway had asked and what had been agreed by the CSR. Since now the Secretariat stated that the project “Down with NCDs!” does not have high chances of being funded, it brought the CSR in the situation of approving a project, which could later be questioned by the EU.
In response, the Secretariat pointed out that the discussed project is in principle fundable, since last year a similar project, also without a Russian partner, had received funding from the European Commission. It was not the role of the Secretariat to decide if an Expert Group’s proposal for ENI funding is forwarded to the CSR. Further, the Secretariatclarified that the mentioned procedure of sending only the recommended project applications to the CSR for approval concerned a different funding mechanism (projects applying for funding through the EUSBSR Seed Money Facility and the Interreg Baltic Sea Regional Programme 2014-2020, in accordance with the respective procedures adopted during the CSR 25 meeting). Concerning the discussed ENI funding, the CSR had explicitly asked to receive all applications for endorsement before submission to the EU as written in the minutes from the CSR 25 meeting referred to. The Chair and theSecretariat confirmed that there are different procedures for project approvals within the NDPHS,and that those procedures differ based on the character of the respective funding institution.
In response to the Secretariat’s question about what could have prevented Expert Groups from submitting project ideas, the nominated OSH EG Chair noted, that the groups were given an overload of information by the Secretariat. In the recent example there were two funding opportunities, presentedwith a large amount of references to websites. The Expert Groups did not have the time to go through all those sources. The information should be presented more clearly and with a focus on the most important aspects, to make it easier for the groups to pick up on those funding opportunities. For example, the information that an ENI funded project needed to include partners from Russia and Belarus would have been crucial.
Further, he stated that since at the current stage the groups were only asked for a project idea, they did not yet ask potential participating countries for their commitment. This would only be done after receiving a feedback on whether the project is feasible in general. Following the short deadlines during the Christmas break, this feedback was expected to be received early this year and not, as earlier announced, only in autumn.
The Chair invited the Secretariat to take this comment into account when sending out emails regarding project-funding opportunities.
While recognizing the validity of the concerns raised, the Secretariat reminded of its high workload, which did not allow to do more than is currently being done, so EGs can not expect much from the Secretariat. Further, also with reference to the lessons learned from the project ideas submitted for PAC/HAC support funding (agenda item 3.4), it pointed out that it is not the Secretariat’s role per se and also, unfortunately, not always possible to help the groups to develop project proposals. In the Secretariat Director’s email of 3 December 2015, the Secretariat guided the groups to the relevant programme documents, which it does not always have the capacity to evaluate. Those entities and persons inside a group that are interested in implementing a given project, and not necessarily the groups’ Chairs or ITAs, should indeed be doing this work.
Following the Secretariat’squestion whether the Expert Groups agree that it would have been easier to develop the project ideas in accordance with the donor’s expectations, if the Commission had given a more precise outline,Norway noted that sufficient precision would never be reached because all EU-funding has a degree of uncertainty. Those who are seeking the funding must propose a project featuring substance consistent with the criteria set by the EU. It is very important to have good contacts with the EGs, in order to get a successful project application. The substance, planning and economical side of projects are the most important aspects of the applications. Further, the EU expects that the projects have an added value and can have an effect in many countries. The Expert Groups should pay attention to those criteria and cooperate closely between each other.