Sweden launches new strategy for cooperation with Serbia

BELGRADE - The Swedish government has adopted a new results strategy for development cooperation with Serbia for the next seven-year period 2014-2020, whose main purpose is to assist in Serbia's EU approximation, the Swedish Embassy in Serbia released in a statement.

"With this decision, Sweden confirms that it wants to be Serbia's reliable partner on the road to EU membership", says Torgny Svenungsson, Counselor at the Embassy of Sweden and Head of Development Cooperation.

Although financial volumes may vary over time, Sweden's ambition is to maintain volumes around EUR 12 million per year, the statement adds.

The Swedish support, which is the third largest bilateral donor of development assistance to Serbia, aims at enabling sustainable democratic development and focuses on administrative and legal reforms, democracy, human rights, civil society, environment and economic development.

In the implementation of this support, Sweden partners with actors from central and local government, civil society and international organizations. Throughout all development cooperation, Sweden integrates aspects of human rights, transparency, accountability, non-discrimination and gender equality.

The new strategy, termed results strategy, is part of a larger context which is Sweden's strategy towards the Western Balkans (Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro, and, Serbia), Eastern Europe (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine) and to Turkey.

As addition to the bilateral programs for the countries in the Western Balkans, regional cooperation to tackle common regional challenges is expected to increase over the strategy period, reads the statement by the Swedish...