About LIFE programme

The UNDP Local Development programme attempts to reduce differences between developed and less developed areas of Croatia, by stimulating the socio-economic rehabilitation of war affected, mostly rural communities. The sustainability of the results of these efforts is to be achieved through strengthening local authorities' capacity to plan, finance and implement development projects. The focus of the UNDP's activities are the rural municipalities and towns falling within the category of Areas of Special State Concern (according to the Law on Areas of Special State Concern – ASSC) within three distinct geographic areas: Banovina & Kordun; Lika & Dalmatian hinterland and Eastern Slavonia – Danube region.

LIFE programme acts as a complement and a corrective to existing state, county and local development activities, with stronger focus on the "niches" – communities, vulnerable groups, individuals and businesses that, for various reasons, are not able to participate in development activities.

Furthermore, in the last few years in view of the shift of the development agenda towards more strategic legislative and capacity priorities in connection with the EU accession process, many international organizations have left the worst-affected areas and attention has moved elsewhere. The most vulnerable segments of the population in these remote and marginalized areas of the country have been left in conditions incomparable with the wealth and prosperity of larger towns and other geographic areas of Croatia.

Consequently, urgent attention is required to re-galvanize actions in the poorest areas of the country especially to increase the absorption capacity of the least developed small size municipalities in the targeted counties and to make all efforts to reduce sizeable regional development gaps so as to achieve a more balanced development between and within the regions, specially those rural micro-regions lagging behind. This will be addressed through development of a pipeline of project proposals with full technical documentation, for which the targeted municipalities and counties, and the business sector within them do not have sufficient capacity.

In addition to its regular activities, the LIFE programme also serves as an implementation tool for an MDGF project field related output: "Closing the Chapter: Social Inclusion and Conflict Transformation in War Affected Areas of Croatia".