- National Grants Component

Objectives
The main goal of the DRP is to improve environmental quality by strengthening the structures and activities already in place in the basin to deal with pollution and environmental degradation.

The programme includes a region-wide cooperative granting component and national-level grants assisting NGOs to manage projects that: ¤ Directly contribute to the reduction of point and non-point sources of pollution; ¤ Contribute to overall improvement of the monitoring system; ¤ Address trans-boundary and/or national problems present in identified hotspots; ¤ Prevent pollution generation by increasing public awareness; ¤ Facilitate the flow of information; ¤ Assist in the prevention of accidental pollution; ¤ Promote the production and use of phosphate-free detergents and organic fertilisers; and ¤ Aid democratic processes by ensuring public involvement and participation in decisions affecting environmental quality in the Danube River Basin.

Background
Already well underway, the DRP is an umbrella for some 80 activities: these are aimed at improving water supply and other water services, strengthening agricultural policy, providing river-basin management tools, and protecting wetlands and other areas. One specific goal in the effort to reduce nutrient pollution is to persuade industry and consumers to eliminate phosphates from detergents. Within this regional initiative there is an awareness-raising component (Grants Scheme: Component III of DRP) implemented by the REC that will enable NGOs and other stakeholders to contribute to the reduction of nutrients and other pollution in the Danube River Basin through projects on both a national and regional scale. This granting scheme is managed by REC Head Office in cooperation with REC offices in nine Danube Countries, in addition to those in Ukraine and Moldova. The programme includes a region-wide cooperative granting component, in addition to national-level grants in the Danube basin countries of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Moldova, Romania, Serbia and Montenegro, Slovakia, Slovenia and Ukraine.

Activities
Initiating a national and regional granting programme scheme; ¤ Preparing grants announcements at national and regional levels; ¤ Managing NGO grants; ¤ Providing capacity building for NGOs/ proposal preparation assistance; ¤ Conducting environmental project monitoring and result evaluation; ¤ Ensuring quality control of funded projects; ¤ Facilitating multi-stakeholder cooperation at national and regional levels; ¤ Promoting cross-border/regional cooperation; ¤ Promoting a watershed approach; ¤ Managing information dissemination at national and regional levels; ¤ Publishing.

Country-specific results
¤ The programme supported seven NGO projects from Serbia and Montenegro, bringing different stakeholders together to address different problems of pollution of Danube watershed (at the national level), in working on reducing nutrients and toxic pollution generated through one of the topics: land-use and agriculture, water management, industries or municipalities. The total amount granted so far in Serbia and Montenegro is USD 60,000 (from a total of USD 120,000).