SRNA: In the Overview of donor activities 2008/2009 it stands that the members of the Donor Coordination Forum have allocated 765.8 million Euros for realization of projects during 2008 and 430.4 million Euros during this year, has been said today by the Minister of Finance and Treasury in the Council of Ministers of BiH, Dragan Vrankić.

During the presentation of the publication Overview of donor activities 2008/2009, Vrankić had said that out of the total allocated funds for 2008 and 2009, 354.7 million Euros has been allocated in a form of grants, while 841.5 million Euros has been allocated in a frame of credits. 

By comparing those figures with 2007, Vrankić has said that the figures from 2008 show the total growth of 243 million Euros in allocations for the official developmental assistance to BiH, as well as the reduction of 20.3 million Euros in grants and by the increase of 263.4 million Euros in credits. 

"This trend, which is being obvious since 2006, can partially be explained by systematic withdrawals of direct bilateral support of some donors, and by a bigger volume of concession credits, which are being approved by the big international financial institutions", Vrankić has said. 

The Minister of Finance and Treasury in the Council of Ministers of BiH has also added that during 2008 the biggest three financial institutions – the European Bank for Renovation and Development, the European Investment Bank and the World Bank, together with Germany and Spain, have allocated around 80% of total amount of the official developmental assistance to BiH.

"At the same time, it should be mentioned that a contribution of the European Commission grows, because in 2009 for the projects in the procedure of deliberation there have been allocated 66.7 million Euros, in comparison with 22.4 million Euros, which have been agreed in 2008 and 45 million Euros in 2007", Vrankić has reminded.

He has expressed his satisfaction because it is the third time that the Overview of donor activities is being done, because it gives an insight in a support given by the members of the Donor Coordination Forum for ten sectors in BiH during 2008 and 2009. He has also pointed out that the previous donor funds in the war and after-war period cannot be connected with the current ones. 

"Those are two different processes. These overviews are being done in order to attain the trust of donors and show the transparency, which is absolutely dominant", Vrankić has pointed out.

The Donor Coordination Forum and the Overview of donor activities represent the mechanisms for strengthening partner relations between BiH and donors.

The director of the Office of the World Bank in BiH, Marco Mantovaneli has congratulated to the Ministry of Finance of BiH, the Department for International Cooperation of the Embassy of Great Britain and the UNDP for a created publication, which he has named the step further towards the right direction in a sense of fulfilling the obligations of our country. 

"Finally, we have a picture of obligations of donors by sectors and it should continually be taken care of. Our final goal is to integrate the overview of donor funds process into the budgets", has been said by Mantovaneli. 

He has pointed out that measuring of efficiency in a sense of spending, as well as the donation itself – should be taken into consideration in future.

Nineteen organizations, which have participated in drafting the previous publications, have previously pointed out that around 424 million Euros have been allocated in a form of loans and grants in 2006 and 556 million Euros in 2007. 

The Donor Coordination Forum has been established in December 2005, as a platform for the exchange of information and coordination of the twenty most active donors in BiH. Since 2006, its members prepare this publication annually.