The Association of Polish Cities will cooperate with the Swiss consulting consortium ENCO-URBAPLAN. Both entities will help Polish towns, among others, in finding Swiss partners for projects financed by the Polish-Swiss Programme for Development of Towns.
The agreement was signed in December 2024. The cooperation will consist of:
- assistance in finding Swiss partners for Polish towns that submit Complete Programme Component Proposals in the call financed by the Polish-Swiss Programme for Development of Towns,
- joint organization of study visits of representatives of Polish towns to Switzerland,
- support of Swiss experts during thematic workshops in Poland and meetings of the Network of Experience Exchange,
- providing expert assistance to Polish towns that receive funding from the Polish-Swiss Programme for Development of Towns,
- participation of representatives of Swiss towns in meetings of the Network of Experience Exchange in Poland.
ENCO-URBAPLAN has many years of experience in cooperation with Swiss local governments. Thanks to this, it will be able to accurately identify potential partners for Polish towns and enable effective exchange of experience.
About the call for towns
On January 16, 2025, the first stage of the call for towns ended. The call was financed from the Swiss Funds for Poland.
Out of 139 eligible local governments, 119 submitted Programme Component Outlines.
The call is two-stage. Now, the applications will be checked for formal compliance by employees of the Ministry of Development Funds and Regional Policy. Those that meet the criteria will proceed to substantive evaluation, which will be carried out by external experts.
Based on the substantive evaluation, a ranking list will be created, which will be approved by the Steering Committee of the Polish-Swiss Programme for Development of Towns. Towns on this list will be invited to submit Complete Programme Component Proposals, i.e. full and final applications for funding. Towns will have about 5 months to do so from the date of publication of the ranking list.
Experts from the Association of Polish Cities (APC) will help cities in preparing Complete Programme Component Proposals. In the area of international cooperation of towns, APC will be supported by ENCO-URBAPLAN.
More information can be found in the call for proposals announcement.
About the Polish-Swiss Programme for Development of Towns
The call was organized as part of the Polish-Swiss Programme for Development of Towns. The programme is one of two parts of the Swiss-Polish Cooperation Programme, i.e. the so-called Swiss Funds. The second part is the Research and Innovation Programme.
The budget of the Polish-Swiss Programme for Development of Towns is 327.882 million Swiss francs.
More information about the Polish-Swiss Programme for Development of Towns can be found in the Programmes tab.
About the Swiss Funds for Poland
The Swiss-Polish Cooperation Programme (commonly known as the Swiss Funds, the Swiss Contribution) is a programme under which funds are distributed, which Switzerland has allocated to the development of our country. This happened on the basis of agreements between Switzerland and the European Union and with Poland. The agreement under which the programme was created was concluded on December 5, 2022 in Warsaw.
Currently, we have the second edition of the Swiss-Polish Cooperation Programme, for which Switzerland has granted Poland 320.1 million Swiss francs. This pool also includes a national contribution, which gives a total amount of 375.458 million Swiss francs.
More information about the second edition of the Swiss Funds for Poland can be found in the Aims and principles tab.