May 2024
Baltic States Catching-up Regions Initiative (CuRI)
Estonia, Latvia & Lithuania: Strengthening border regions for resilience and growth
Background
While the three Baltic states, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, have seen significant reforms and income
convergence since independence in the early 1990’s, regional disparities within the countries have
remained. In some cases, these disparities have deepened in terms of GDP per capita, economic
activity/production, access to jobs as well as the provision of basic and other social services (including
healthcare and education), these changes have been accompanied by negative demographic change.
Development challenges in the historic lagging border areas have recently been significantly deepened
and negatively accelerate because of a volatile and evolving geopolitical situation in context of the EU
external border with Russia and Belarus.
Under programs as part of the European Commission’s Cohesion Policy several efforts have been made
to address these regional disparities through targeted development programs and investments in
infrastructure, education, and entrepreneurship to promote balanced economic growth across all
regions. The absorption of funds varies by region, often attributed to limited capacity at local and regional
level to plan, design and implement development projects. Investment efforts are further underpinned
by a range of development policies and regional development strategies, the latter developed with a focus
on the 2021 – 2027 programming period and ensuring access to the available EU funded programs in line
with national and local priorities. Several plan and strategy reviews are reported to be in progress to
incorporate the evolving geo-political context, with information around the impact of disruptions relating
to the regional conflict and localized border closures are available to a varying degree and produced by
different actors (ranging from national economic impact statements to hyper local socio-economic
surveys).
Objective
The objective of the initiative is to work closely with and support local and regional stakeholders in
selected border regions to identify, enable and accelerate sustainable development and social
investment opportunities under currently available European Cohesion policy funding. The concrete
outcomes of the initiative should be an effective project pipeline and a strengthened capacity of the
regional and local authorities to implement a range of development projects. A feature of the Baltics CuRI
is its bottom-up approach, with local/regional authorities playing a pivotal role in selecting specific areas
of work (in close collaboration with the EC, national authorities and the World Bank).
The project will focus on a limited set of regions selected from ones that create the external EU border
with Russia and Belarus in the three Baltic countries (Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania). Discussions between
these and other border affected countries (e.g. Poland, Finland) on the topic of regional development and
an increasing focus on safety and security in border regions have already been initiated and are ongoing
through different platforms and initiatives. This project will not duplicate these efforts, which often
concentrate on analysis of current development and the effects of war, as well as on networking. The
Baltics CuRI will emphasize narrow topics in selected territories with potential for utilization of EU funds
and capacity building provide an even stronger local and regional lens, build local capacity to catalyse local
action and build a critical mass of cooperation and sharing of ideas and approaches from the bottom-up.
The data gathering and knowledge gained in the process will also help provide further insight on the
impact of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on the border regions.
The project commenced in April 2024 and is envisioned in two Phases:
1) Scoping (3 – 4 months) – background research, identification of key issues and focus areas and
securing buy-in and active participation from key local, regional and national stakeholders; and
2) Implementation of regional/local support (12 – 18 months) – including regional capacity building
and technical assistance in limited thematic areas, as well as knowledge sharing and regular
convening across regions and participants (in close collaboration with the EC and the national
level).
Providing technical assistance to a specific region or locality will be informed by the local priorities and
conditions and the local capacity and ability to absorb such support. It will further be necessary to identify
common issues and themes, with a long-list of potential thematic focus areas including: local economic
development, skills attraction and development, housing quality and supply, mobility and connectivity,
social services and social protection, inter-municipal cooperation as well as cultural cohesion and
integration.
Regions of focus
In discussions with the participant countries, the following regions have been identified for potential
support:
Estonia South-East Region with a specific focus on Põlva, Võru and Valga (given existing
cooperation efforts) and additional focus on the linkages with Tartu as main economic
center in the region
Latvia Latgale region, with specific focus on Daugavpils and Rezekne as urban areas of
significance, possibly extending to parts of Vidzeme region once the thematic scope
has been agreed. Results of the project should be applicable also to Vidzeme and
Zemgale.
Lithuania Utena county and a few directly adjacent rural municipalities with direct border
proximity in the capital region (dependent on relevance of thematic focus areas)
Project contacts
European Commission: DG REGIO World Bank
Dorota Witoldson Carli Venter
[email protected] [email protected]
Joerg Lackenbauer Grzegorz Wolszczak
[email protected] [email protected]
Saatja: "Damaris Lois Bangean" <
[email protected]>
Saaja: "RIK info" <
[email protected]>
Teema: Data request for World Bank technical assistance project
Kuupäev: 2024-11-29 10:27
Tähelepanu! Tegemist on välisvõrgust saabunud kirjaga.
Tundmatu saatja korral palume linke ja faile mitte avada.
Dear Sir/Madam,
I am writing to request access to specific data from your business
registry as part of the World Bank technical assistance project “Baltics
Catching Up Regions”, funded by the DG REGIO of the European Commission
(please see one-pager description of our project attached for further
details). As our specific thematic area of support is focused on local
economic development in the border regions of Estonia, I am seeking
information on the following from 2014 to present:
1.
List of registered businesses within Southern Estonia (Voru,
Valga, and Polva Counties), with the following additional data points:
operational status (active/inactive), field of activity, number of
employees, revenues/loss. I would sincerely appreciate it if you could
please let me know if any additional information can be supplied, such as
trade data or other points.
This information will be used for local and regional analysis of economic
performance in the past 10 years (if available) and will be handled in
accordance with applicable data protection laws.
Please let me know the process for obtaining this data, including any
forms, fees, or documentation required. If possible, I would appreciate
receiving the data in CSV or Excel format to facilitate analysis.
Thank you for your assistance in this matter. Please do not hesitate to
contact me should you need further clarification regarding this request.
I look forward to your response.
Sincerely,
Damaris
Damaris Bangean
Consultant
Europe and Central Asia Region
Urban, Resilience, and Land Global Practice