On Wednesday 22 October, the first consortium meeting of the EU technical assistance project Transparency, Efficiency and Accountability of Courts in Moldova took place in down town Chisinau. The German lead organisation GIZ organised the meeting with all four key experts, the local support team, and representatives of the two consortium partners: CILC from the Netherlands and JCI from France. The discussion focused on the arrangements for the successful project implementation – the recruitment and mobilisation of the pool of non-key experts, access to relevant additional expertise, and organisational support.
The meeting started in the local GIZ office in Chisinau, as the project office still needs to be furnished. But we quickly transferred to the nearest coffee bar, since in addition to content expertise and a proactive attitude, you also need good coffee for a successful meeting (especially when one of your experts is Italian).
The inception phase for this project started on 28 September, and the first draft of the inception report will be circulated next week. This was a good time to discuss administrative and contracting matters and the way forward with the entire team. All team members agreed that close coordination among the three parallel justice sector reform projects that recently started in Moldova (with CILC represented in all three) is the best approach to avoid overlaps, to achieve good synergies and to plan the work load optimally within the beneficiary institutions.
All in all, it was very stimulating to see the team working hard to complete the inception report. This can only lead to a very successful completion of the inception phase!
In the meantime, we are eagerly preparing the start of our lead project Probation and Rehabilitation next week. More to follow on this from 27 October onwards…