Capacity building of the Serbian Republic Geodetic Authority

It is important to emphasize that all the main goals of the project have been successfully achieved by the end of May 2022. The extended period (no-cost extension) mainly aimed to ensure successful and sustainable transfer of project results to the RGA and municipalities. Results achieved within specific project components could be summarized in the following way: COMPONENT A: NATIONAL INVESTMENT MAP MODEL The main focus within this component was on the analysis of the needs of endusers as well as type of information to be incorporated into the Register of Investment Locations. The main outputs of this component were operational model and database containing data that were agreed upon through dialogue with the stakeholders future users of the register. The process of modeling the Register and researching the data was mostly done in the first two years of the project. Inline with the project plan, the model was revised in the second half of 2021 and early 2022. The revision of the model during the project proved the flexibility of the established model. It was confirmed by the pilot municipalities and the Development Agency of Serbia that the model can meet the requirements of eventual future adjustments. All the necessary transfer of knowledge to the team of the Republic Geodetic Authority has been performed by the LM experts. COMPONENT B: SYSTEM FOR DATA COLLECTION Within this component, the project worked on the development of a system for data collection which provides standardized inputs and maintains the existing data in NRIL. The main users of the system are the municipalities and the RGA. Besides the main goal, other goals have been achieved, such as building the capacity of the RGA to write technical specifications and participating in the development of software solutions. In parallel with building internal competence for operation and maintenance at RGA, sustainability is also guaranteed by the paid maintenance and customer support agreement between RGA and IGEA company (application provider). The RGA team has received all the necessary training and is fully capable of managing the tool as well to conduct future training for the new LSGs. During the final conference as well as during the customer support sessions, the tool was rated as very relevant, helpful and user friendly. COMPONENT C: CAPACITY BUILDING OF LOCALGOVERNMENTS AND RGA The main tasks of this component were to build/improve cooperation between the RGA and the piloted municipalities and to build capacity of both RGA and LSGs. All the main project objectives have been successfully achieved. Capacity building of participating LSGs and the RGA staff was a key supporting activity to the technical perspective of the project. The aim of capacity building activities was to enable proper development, implementation and maintenance of the results of components A, B and D, as well as to ensure the sustainability of functioning of the system upon project completion. COMPONENT D:LOCATION POOL The "Location Pool" is a web based application with the main task to help investors to search the NRIL register by filtering through various criteria. Based on that filtering, investors get the subset matching the search criteria. The development of the "Location Pool" started based on the technical specification written by the RGA technical team. Lantmaterteriet provided technical support, which was key for the RGA technical team to develop necessary skills and methodology to successfully write specifications. The functionalities of this web tool have been collected following the requirements of local self-government units, state institutions, and a couple of partner organizations such as the Standing Conference of Towns and Municipalities and NALED. The RGA team has received all the necessary training and is fully capable of managing the tool as well to conduct future training for the new LSGs. After 4 months of pilot testing, Location Pool was officially launched at the Final Conference of the National Assembly May 2022. With the location pool now being fully functioning, LSGs have the equal opportunity to present their investment potential 24/7/365, the Government has a clear insight into the register of investment locations and investors can easily make comparisons between similar locations. A particular advantage over similar initiatives is the amount of information available. Currently, the location pool includes information coming from the National Geospatial Data Infrastructure, the Republic Geodetic Authority, and the Republic Statistical office. COMPONENT E: PUBLIC MONITORING AND VISIBILITY TOOL The main task of this component was to develop a website for tracking and reporting the project implementation dynamics. In addition to its primary purpose i.e. monitoring the project implementation, the monitoring and visibility tool had a promotional role. The media coverage was very good and it has contributed to additional commitment from the pilot LSGs but was also useful in attracting more LSGs to join the project. The project had over 20 TV appearances on the national and local TV networks. Over 20 articles in national newspapers and professional magazines have been published regarding project activities. Pilot LGAs also supported frequent media coverage of project activities on the local level. The RGA also supported the projects media coverage through internal monthly bulletin and frequent news towards the community on its website and YouTube channel in total, this ended up in more than 500 posts. The production version of the Project website/Public Monitoring and visibility tool can be found at the web address: https://invest.geosrbija.rs. The website is a collection of all important information that accompanied the project from the beginning to its finalization. The RGA team has received all the necessary training and is fully capable of managing the tool. The main recommendation is to make a formal decision by the RGA on the future of this website. In addition to establishing a website within this component, a promotional video was created and significant public promotion work was done.

The intervention aims to support the Republic Geodetic Authority of Serbia (RGA) to establish well functioning National Register of Investment Maps (NRIM). The key objective of the contribution is establishment NRIM for creation, maintenance and monitoring of investment locations for the territory of Republic of Serbia with a platform for stakeholder communication and decision making. Towards the end of the implementation period, the project is expected to achieve the following results: - Establishment of the National Investment Map Model - A system for collecting data on investment locations on a local level is created - Built capacities of local self-governments for attracting investments by presenting available resources to potential investors and land management - Establishment of direct and transparent channel of communication between investors and a local government „Location pool” as a part of NRIM. - Public monitoring & visibility tool for National Register of Investment Maps The proposal focuses on Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI) as potential game-changing for development as it allows governments to integrate planning, investments, taxation, disaster risk management and climate change monitoring, mitigation and adaptation in new ways with great savings in time and funds, while improving overall service and governance. With constant technological improvements, society is able to actively use government’s data on daily base as well as to participate in the collecting new or maintaining existing data, which are at most importance for decision making on the governmental, regional and/or local level.