Twinning Moldova - Closing meeting held

On Thursday 22 November 2018, a public closing meeting and a final workshop within the EU funded Twinning Project MD 14 ENI AG 01 16 „Capacity building of the Moldovan Agency for Intervention and Payment in Agriculture (AIPA) for the application of EU norms and standards for the administration of ARD support schemes” was held in the premises of Summit Events & Conference Center with the participation of the Twinning Management team and high ranking officials from AIPA, EU Delegation, involved embassies, Ministry of Agriculture and Food Industry, as well as State Chancellery.

The project has been implemented by Agrarmarkt Austria (AMA), the Austrian Paying Agency in consortium with the State Agricultural Intervention Fund (SZIF), the Czech Paying Agency and the Agency for Restructuring and Modernisation of Agriculture (ARMA), the Polish Paying Agency.

The overall objective of this Twinning Project was to support the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Industry in improving its financial capability and governance to implement the Agriculture and Rural Development policy objectives. The project purpose was to strengthen the institutional capacity of the Agency for Intervention and Payment in Agriculture to administer Agriculture and Rural development support measures in line with EU norms and standards.

The project had a budget of € 1.2 million financed by the European Commission. The implementation of activities was within 24 months, from December 2016 until December 2018. In total, 660 expert days were realised by the consortium.

Thereby the focus laid on three main components:

• New organisational structure and legal basis for AIPA in line with EU requirements
• Comprehensive documentation covering all the functions of AIPA
• Capacity Building and Institutional Strengthening