With the ongoing disruption from COVID-19, the CEI is aware of the difficulties this poses for education
and working activities in general in the CEI region and beyond, where schools, universities and other
working environments are increasingly cancelling most in-person classes and meetings, not to mention
medical appointments limiting access to health facilities.
In these difficult times, schools, institutions and operators are focusing on finding alternative ways to
transform the current serious emergency into an important opportunity for fostering and disseminating
innovation at educational and professional level and enhancing experiences already in place in many
schools and health centres, through telemedicine for example, where remote diagnosis and treatment
of patients by means of telecommunications technology would be ever more useful today.
On such basis, the CEI intends to contribute to facing the global COVID-19 outbreak through tangible
and immediate action addressing its 17 Member States, i.e.: Albania, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina,
Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Italy, Moldova, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Poland,
Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia and Ukraine, with particular attention to those which are not
members of the EU.
While a growing number of countries, regions and cities are declaring a state of emergency - and the
World Health Organization has officially classified the worldwide outbreak a pandemic - the CEI is
launching this Extraordinary Call for Proposals that will allocate small grants for addressing specific
needs at local level in the above-mentioned countries. The purpose is to support the communities and
territories of CEI Member States in facing this emergency through a simple tool, able to respond to the
necessities of citizens quickly.
