World Bank Helps Romania’s Top-Performing Alba Iulia to Boost Potential to Access €69 Million in EU Funds (press release):

ALBA IULIA, ROMANIA, September 24, 2015— Today, the city of Alba Iulia and the World Bank held a ceremony to officially conclude their year-long engagement, which helped the city to assess its long-term development plans, strategies, and projects, and ultimately, prioritize 13 projects from a long-list of over 350 projects for implementation through 2020. The ceremony was attended by the Mayor of Alba Iulia Municipality, Mircea Hava, and World Bank Practice Manager, Social, Urban, Rural and Resilience Global Practice, David Sislen.

The city of Alba Iulia ranks first among Romanian county capitals in per capita EU funds absorption. Although relatively small in size with a population of only about 68,000, it has managed to absorb or leverage €150 million in EU funds. It is also unique in being the first municipality in Romania to have paid from its own budget to enter into a miscellaneous reimbursable agreement (MRA) with the World Bank. Through the MRA, the Bank provided advisory services between June 2014 and July 2015 to boost Alba Iulia’s potential to access EU funds in the 2014-20 period.

”Our joint activity with the World Bank is by no means arbitrary,” said the Mayor. “And the fact that we are the only municipality in Romania which has built such a strategic partnership not only entitles us to be proud of being Alba Iulia citizens, but also gives us the certainty that Alba Iulia will have access to the best and most sustainable financial solutions. Our target is to have the EU funds available for the 2014-20 programming period, but also other financial resources, and this is why we had to establish the priorities of this city together with the Bank.”