Signing of a Letter of Intent between the Mazowieckie Voivodship and the WB

September 23rd marked the beginning of a ground breaking way of engagement for the Poland Office when a Letter of Intent between the World Bank and the Mazowieckie Voivodship (Warsaw) was signed to develop innovative ways of supporting the regional self-government of the latter. The Mazowieckie Voivodship includes Warsaw and is the largest sub-national entity in Poland with a population of about 5 million people. This cooperation is intended as a sounding board for World Bank engagement in the most advanced Middle Income Countries, including cost-sharing and fee-for-service based instruments. The intention is that such an engagement is to be applicable also in other regions in Poland and other new EU Member states as well as other ECA countries. This is especially important at a time when the Poland team is looking to embark on a campaign of rebranding its image and re-focusing its business model to better suit the needs of a European Union member state.

       

The LOI was signed at the premises of the Mazowieckie Voivodship by the Marshal of the Voivodship, Mr. Adam Struzik and his Deputy, Mr. Stefan Kotlecki, and by Orsalia Kalantzopoulos, Director for Central Europe and the Baltic Countries on behalf of the WB. The Treasurer of the Voivodship, Mr. Miesztalski was also present as so were Thomas Laursen, the Country Manager for Poland and the Baltic Countries and Radek Czapski, Infrastructure Sector Operations Officer and TTL for the project on our end.

Mr. Struzik said at the signing ceremony that "(...) the creation of a professional strategic development strategy, would facilitate the access to EU funds for the Voivodship which is now a priority for the Voivodship". Both Orsalia and Thomas stressed the importance of this pilot activity which is "(...) a learning exercise and a sounding board for the WB in the MICs in ECA and which, if successful would be replicable to other ECA regions and federations".

With the LOI the Bank has agreed to work together with Mazowieckie on investigating the technical scope of specific areas of cooperation, and signing specific cooperation agreement(s) for those areas that will be confirmed as the priority ones. The first pipeline activity waiting to be specified under an agreement is to work on introducing a system of strategic and operational planning and assisting in the development of a strategy of development and rehabilitation of roads infrastructure in the region, developing and implementing roads maintenance/rehabilitation management program, and improving institutional capacity of regional road administration to manage regional roads by preparing a public expenditure review. The review for the Voivodship will be the first sub-national PER the Bank has ever conducted in a country that does not have a federal structure -- as for example Brazil or India. This would be done on a cost-sharing basis partly with a USD 150 K grant from the WB while USD 250 K would be fee-for service paid to the WB by the Voivodship.