The Europe and Newly Independent States (Europe and NIS) Programme, along with four other Regional Programmes, is part of UNIDO’s Bureau for Regional Programmes, within the Programme Development and Technical Cooperation Division (PTC).
The Europe and NIS Programme plays a key role in the development, coordination and monitoring of UNIDO technical cooperation (TC) programmes and projects, and it works to generate and disseminate industry-related knowledge through the promotion of global forums.
The three core functions of the Europe and NIS programme - strategic demand management, relationship management, and country portfolio monitoring and management - are pursued to achieve following goals:
- Systematic analysis of recipient countries’ development priorities and demands, as well as donors’ geographic and thematic priorities.
- Providing up-to-date and relevant information to Member States’ permanent missions in Vienna, and to local partners and beneficiaries at the country level.
- Efficient and effective interaction with various stakeholders, national governments, international organizations, and the private sector for project identification and formulation, and for initiating, designing and organizing global forums of regional relevance.
About the Europe and NIS Programme
Countries of coverage
The Europe and NIS Programme focuses on 31 countries in Central, Eastern and South East Europe, the Western Balkans, the Caucasus and Central Asia. The region extends over 25 million square km, and includes around 400 million people. The countries diverge widely in terms of geographical size, population, income levels, natural resource use, economic structure, institutions, and innovation capabilities. The Programme covers the following countries in the four major sub-regions:
Central and Eastern Europe (CEE)
- EU Member States: Bulgaria, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Lithuania, Hungary, Malta, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia
South East Europe (SEE)
- Non-EU Member States: Albania, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Croatia, FYR Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and Turkey
Caucasus
- Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia
Central Asia
- Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan
- Russian Federation: 88 oblasts and republics
- Belarus, Moldova and Ukraine
All the countries in the region except Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan are classified as Middle Income Countries (MICs) or higher. Since the early 1990s, the process of transition from centrally-planned to well-functioning market economies, and the desire to realize sustainable development objectives, have contributed to a new set of challenges for structural transformation in the countries of the region,
Funds Mobilization
Technical cooperation in the Europe and NIS region is mainly funded from the voluntary contributions of UNIDO Member States, the Montreal Protocol Fund, the Global Environment Facility, the EU Neighbourhood Policy, as well as from self-financed trust funds.
The new EU Member States from the region are emerging as new donors, formulating their own development cooperation frameworks and promoting ‘East-East’ and ‘East-South’ cooperation initiatives. UNIDO activities under this initiative include sharing knowledge, successful development experiences, know-how, and financial resources intra- and inter-regionally with African, Arab, Asian and Latin American countries.
