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Auction of environmental projects

Unusual initiative of EuropeAid: the most innovative and worthy environmental projects for auction

 

On March 13 EuropeAid, the European Commission's office of Cooperation with Third Countries, organized for the first time a conference-aution for environmental projects. The aim of the initiative is to auction the projects already selected by the European Commission but that have been excluded from funding for lack of budget. The intent of this conference is to find donors willing to fund innovative ideas on the environment, thus offering a second chance to the most deserving projects.
The auctioned projects are circa 80 and address the protection of biodiversity, the conservation of forests and the promotion of sustainable energy as well as climate change and desertification in Asia, Africa, Latin America and Europe. The financial value of the projects is between 400,000 and 3,000,000 euros. Nearly 400 participants registered to the event, including representatives from universities, research foundations, international organizations, NGOs, agencies of the Member States, private foundations and private organizations. Benita Ferrero Waldner, European Commissioner for External Relations declared: "each of the projects should be implemented (...) the initiative will also be an opportunity to facilitate a connection between the various actors involved in the development, sharing the results of the selection process of the Commission". If the initiative is successful, the practice could be then extended to projects atteining other themes.

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