“First Forum for South East European Women Entrepreneurs”

1. “First Forum for South East European Women Entrepreneurs” “General information about South East Europe Territorial Cooperation Programme” Istanbul, 22 September 2010

2. The South East Europe Territorial Cooperation Programme MAIN OBJECTIVE to improve the territorial, economic and social integration process in South East Europe and contribute to cohesion, stability and competitiveness of the area through the development of transnational partnerships and joint action on matters of strategic importance.

3. The South East Europe Territorial Cooperation Programme • The programme shall: • facilitate innovation, entrepreneurship, knowledge economy and information society by concrete co-operation action and visible results • improve the attractiveness of regions and cities taking into account sustainable development, physical and knowledge accessibility and environmental quality by integrated approaches and concrete cooperation action and visible results • foster integration by supporting balanced capacities for transnational territorial cooperation at all levels

4. SEE Area The South East Europe Programme Area includes 16 countries: Albania Austria Bosnia and Herzegovina Bulgaria Romania Croatia FYROM Greece Hungary Serbia Montenegro Slovakia Slovenia Moldova Italy (only some of its regions) Ukraine (only some of its regions)

5. The South East Europe Territorial Cooperation Programme • The global and specific objectives of the Operational Programme will be pursued through the followingPriority Axes: • Priority Axis 1 : Facilitation of innovation and entrepreneurship The objective of this Priority Axis is fostering innovation, entrepreneurship, the knowledge economy and to enhance integration and economic relations in the cooperation area. • Priority Axis 2: Protection and improvement of the environment The objective of this Priority Axis is to override the constraints imposed by national barriers, to foresee future environmental threats and opportunities and to develop common transnational action for the protection of nature and humans within the SEE.

6. The South East Europe Territorial Cooperation Programme • Priority Axis 3: Improvement of the accessibility The objective of this Priority Axis is to promote physical and virtual accessibility to the programme area. • Priority Axis 4: Development of transnational synergies for sustainable growth areas The objective of this Priority Axis is to take different forms of preventive measures and development factors, showing a specific cross-sectoral character strongly interlinking economic, environmental, social and governance issues in sustainable urban and regional settlement development.

7. The South East Europe Territorial Cooperation Programme • Some information about Competitive Calls for proposals: The open, competitive call for proposals, according to paragraph 7.2 of the Operational Programme, can follow one or two step application procedure. In case of two steps: • First Step: Applicants are requested to submit an Expression of Interest (EoI) based on a reduced form. The EoI presents the objectives of the project, the anticipated budget, the type of activities, their location and the cooperation area covered as well as the planned outputs and results and the structure of the partnership. • Second Step:Only the applicants who were successful in the first step of the call are invited to submit a completed Application Form (AF).

8. The South East Europe Territorial Cooperation Programme Two calls launched so far : • First call: launched in May 2008 – projects approved in March 2009 • 40 projects selected which amount to 76.628.855 euro • More than 500 partners from the 16 countries • The size of the projects ranges between 1 and 5 million euro • The projects are covering all project priorities • Second call: launched in November 2009 – the second step (submission of full application package) was closed on 07 September 2010.

9. The South East Europe Territorial Cooperation Programme Official information about the Programme… • This year SEE Annual Conference 2010 is taking place on 21-22 September in Thessaloniki, Greece The conference will provide the right environment to discuss the future of cooperation in the area, as well as to stimulate the development of relevant and innovative projects in South East Europe. It will have the following key objectives: • To promote the SEE Programme and reinforce its role in the area • To stimulate innovative proposals for future strategic co-operation activities • To create an (efficient) dialogue on the topic of development in the Balkans area • To offer networking opportunities and a framework for the exchange of experience for the Programme stakeholders • To stimulate inter-programme(s) dialogue and synergies • To stir project development towards the third call for project proposals

10. Project proposal WE-SEE In occasion of the first call for proposal on South East Europe Programme, the Ancona Chamber of Commerce supported the Marche Region (Department of Industry, Craft and Energy, Area of Promotion, Credit and Innovative finance and Area of Equal Opportunities) in the submission of the project proposal WE-SEE Women's Entrepreneurship Empowerment in South East Europe Priority Axis 1: Facilitation of innovation and entrepreneurship AoI 1.2: Develop the enabling environment for innovative entrepreneurship

11. Project proposal WE-SEE The WE-SEE project aims: • to promote exchanges, studies and training activities for the innovation of production sectors and processes which women-run SMEs are more interested in and are more strategic in terms of development of local systems, with a special focus on the ICT • to homogenise access to credit standards and procedures by supporting enterprises, especially those run by women, in the definition of their strategies for competitive development and via the valorisation of no-price factors (i.e. innovation, design, technology, environment, etc) • to encourage new forms of savings and credit groups, ensuring that these will be accessible to women • to create interdisciplinary and trans-national networks among most successful women-run enterprises and those with less experience will be promoted

12. Project proposal WE-SEE Estimated budget: 1.260.000,00 € Partnership composed by 7 contries: Italy, Hungary, Bulgaria, Slovakia, Greece, Albania and Serbia. The project proposal (EoI) was submitted on the First Step of the First Call for Proposal in June 2008. It hasn't been selected to the 2nd step of the application procedure. The Monitoring Commitee of the SEE Programme received a number 822 valid applications, the list of the projects invited to the second step were only 95 (almost 11% has been approved) and our proposal was 116 in the ranking.

13. Thank you for your attention! Davide Frulla Contacts: Forum of the Adriatic and Ionian Chambers Ancona Chamber of Commerce – Eu project management and International Cooperation Unit Piazza XXIV Maggio, 1 – 60124 Ancona Phone: +39 071 5898355; Fax: +39 071 5898255 davide.frulla@an.camcom.it