Reasons to start the project - an overview

DEG and Steinbeis Foundation already have successfully implemented the AQUIT Project in Serbia. The aim of the project was to create the infrastructure for professional development and qualification of Serbian IT specialists, including their certification. After such qualification, these specialists remain at disposal of German and European employers as attractive outsourcing partners and IT-suppliers.

DEG and Steinbeis Foundation enter now in a new project, PPP (Public-Private Partnership) project, aimed to contribute to improve industrial safety policies in Serbia by providing education and training of HSE engineers and specialists in accordance to EU criteria. PPP broadly refers to long term, contractual partnerships between public and private sector agencies, specially targeted towards financing, designing, implementing, and operating infrastructure facilities services that were traditionally provided by the public sector.

Regarding Health, Safety, Environment (HSE), Security (police security) and Fire Fighting, Serbian companies, comparing to Europe, show evident shortcomings. In industry, production is performed with old and partly worn equipment. In Serbia, there is a large number of industrial plants that, due to the absence of a safe production technology, represent a potential threat for their employees and neighboring population and environment. From the official statistical data, it can be seen that the number of death cases at work in Serbia, amounting to 14 deaths per 1 mil. ff equivalent work hours, is 4 times larger than in EU with 2,5 deaths. Regarding the number of work accidents that are subject to reporting, the value per 1 mil work hours in Serbia amounts to 43.12 (in 2004), while in Germany it is 17,47 (in 2005). Indicators, relevant for the safety of plants operation, e.g. fire, explosion or leakage (loss of liquids in transportation), are available only on a limited level, i.e. only for larger plants. Work safety rules in Serbian production companies are not adhered to in accordance with European standards.

The Serbian authorities are aware of this problem, however, due to the lack of funds and know-how, they have been unable to change anything for the better. The lack of know-how is evident; both in the field of planning when defining legal regulations and in the field of their application in production practice, because there are not enough skilled specialists and professionally trained staff at all levels, all the way to the level of safety researchers at faculties. Even in case of existence of legal regulations, they are often not used in practice.

ESPRiT Project will provide training courses in the field of HSE and on-the-job-training in Germany and other EU countries and in innovation centers in Belgrade and Novi Sad. Further, ESPRiT will establish a permanent training services in Serbia, that will offer to engineers and other specialists an opportunity for additional education according to EU criteria and specializations in HSE field.