2. Article

Selection of sub projects 2.1 Institutional set-up: The SIF Council, which is appointed and approved by the Cabinet of Ministers, shall act as the Steering Committee for the operation and is responsible for administrative, financial and technical implementation of the Fund. The SIF Council takes decisions with regard to approval or rejection of each proposal. The Evaluation Committee, appointed by the SIF Council, will carry out the quality assessment of applications for grants. The Evaluation Committee consists of 5 voting members selected on the basis of open competition, including the NGO community, and a non-voting chairman representing the Intermediary. The Evaluation Committee reports to the SIF Council. The Director of SIF has the signatory powers of the Fund and functions as the executer of State budget allocated for Fund. The grant contract with the end-recipient shall be signed by the Director of SIF. 2.2 Selection process and procedures: The availability of grants from the Fund shall be announced in an open call. Applications shall be submitted to the Intermediary, which shall conduct the administrative and eligibility check of applications and sub-projects. The eligible applications shall be forwarded the Evaluation Committee for quality and financial assessment. External assessors may be involved in the appraisal of the sub-projects. The Evaluation Committee shall provide a ranked list of projects for approval by the SIF Council. The Intermediary shall inform applicants whose applications are rejected about the reasons for the rejection. Applicant whose application is rejected due to non-compliance with administrative or eligibility criteria can request the Intermediary to review its decision. The applicant shall submit such a request within 10 days from being notified about the rejection and shall provide reasons for why the decision should be overturned. 2.3 Selection criteria: All applications are subject to administrative and eligibility checks described in all three activity support measures (annex 2, 3 & 4 to the application). Separate selection criteria for quality assessment have been developed for each measure reflecting the main objectives (sub criteria are developed under each main criterion): Measure 1: A set of evaluation criteria are developed covering the following subjects (sub criteria are developed under each main criteria); applicant's previous activities; annual work program; activity long-term program. Measure 2: A set of evaluation criteria are developed covering the following subjects (sub criteria are developed under each main criteria); necessity for capacity building; long-term action plan; relevance and nature of sub-projects; applicants' implementation capacity. Measure 3: A set of evaluation criteria are developed covering the following subjects (sub criteria are developed under each main criteria); budget and cost-effectiveness; relevance; methodology; sustainability; financial and operational capacity. Scoring (for all measures): The evaluation criteria are divided into sections and subsections. Each subsection must be given a score between 1 and 5 in accordance with the following guidelines: 1=very poor; 2=poor; 3=adequate; 4=good; 5=very good. The applications with the highest scores shall be given priority when grants are awarded. The maximum score is 100. 2.4 Open calls and availability of funds (including number of calls, duration of calls, and estimated size): Measure 1: Total indicative amount that is available for measure 1 is 40% of total grant amount, that is 2,106,268 EUR. The Intermediary shall organise four calls for measure 1. The first call shall be opened as soon as possible after the Grant Agreement enters into force. The second call shall be opened no later than 1 October 2007, the third no later than 1 October 2008, and the last one no later than 1 October