Lithuanian voluntary transparency initiative Jonvabaliai is a winner of the Regiostars 2016
On 11 October, the European Commission's yearly RegioStars Awards ceremony took place in Brussels, as part of the European Week of Regions and Cities.
One of the winning projects was the Lithuanian Transparency initiative Jonvabaliai. This initiative got the RegioStar in „Effective Management” category. Improving the public perception of transparency in the use of EU funds was the main goal of the Lithuanian project. Jonvabaliai was centred around an interactive website. This website is hosting a map with projects financed by European Structural Funds. Project managers could submit information on their project such as results, prices, public procurement procedures, company's shareholders, anti-corruption measures, funds management and more. The more information was made public, the more “transparency fireflies” the project would earn.
Lithuanian Minister of Finance, Rasa Budbergytė claimed that evaluation of the Lithuanian transparency initiative in Europe is a proof that openness of project managers in the society and transparency of projects are necessary and highly valuated.
The yearly EU-wide Regiostars competition puts the spotlight on the most innovative and inspiring EU funded projects and illustrates, through concrete real-life examples, how Cohesion Policy supports the creation of economic growth and jobs.
This year five winning projects were selected to receive the prestigious RegioStars trophy from the hands of EU Commissioner for Regional Policy, Corina Creţu and the RegioStars Jury President, MEP Lambert van Nistelrooij.
Well, it’s not the first Lithuanian Project, which got evaluation from the European Commission. First of all, project Lasers for Micromachining and Diagnostics has participated in RegioStars 2009 final. Therefore, even three projects from Lithuania have participated in RegioStars 2010 final. These are Social Integration of Individuals suffering from dependency on psychoactive substances project in the restaurant ‘’Mano guru’’, then Computer Literacy Basics for a Lithuanian e-Citizen project and website of EU Structural Funds (www.esparama.lt). The last two won RegioStars in Information and Communication category and ICT applications for e-inclusion category. Finally, project of Rehabilitation centre of deaf social advertising won the RegioStar 2013.
