EU policy compliance in agriculture and rural development sector – IPARD in BiH through Croatian Experience

Donor: European fond for the Balkans, „Think and Link“ program.

The aim of this research is to generate concrete analysis and set of proposal for policy-decision makers in Bosnia and Herzegovina regarding preparation process for Instrument for Pre-Accession Assistance – Component V: Rural Development. In the course of research, the successful example of Croatia in that process will be used in order to utilize their learned lessons from that process. This research has to streams. Stream I will aim at analytical research of: Croatia’s IPARD structures, laws, procedures and regulations,; measures that are supported through IPARD in Croatia; interest of Croatian farmers for applying for support and their level of success in applying; criteria that Croatian farmers must satisfy in order to be eligible for support; and presence, level of engagement and capacity of service providers (individual consultants and organizations) that are assisting farmers in application for IPARD support. The second stream will be analysis of BiH’s current preparedness for IPARD. This includes: analysis of reached level when it comes to establishment of necessary IPARD structures, laws, procedures and regulations; IPARD measures that could be proposed for BiH; BiH farmers’ awareness of different kinds of support for agriculture and rural development (domestic and EU); BiH farmers’ current eligibility to satisfy Croatian criteria set for applying to IPARD support; and presence and capacity of service providers (individual consultants and organizations) that have the ability to assist farmers in applying for IPARD support when that component becomes available in BiH. Duration of this research project is 9 months.