Amendment/Top-up to Contract providing Assistance for the Implementation of Technical Assistance and Information Exchange (TAIEX) Activities regarding the IPA TAIEX activities (no. 1) Contract related to: Amendment/Top-up to Contract providing Assistance for the Implementation of Technical Assistance and Information Exchange (TAIEX) Activities regarding the IPA TAIEX activities (no. 1) - The action aims to facilitate progress in key areas of needed reforms required by the Western Balkans and Turkey to comply with Union¿s values, and their alignment with the Union¿s rules, standards and practices in the relevant areas. It includes three main areas of support:1) EU Integration Facility:The specific objective is to support flexible, preparatory/pilot actions that address specific priority and urgent/unforeseen needs in the region, including interventions in the context of the COVID-19 recovery that merit to be addressed rapidly in order to assure continuity in the European perspective and herewith related issues.It will support small interventions such as provision of technical assistance, preparatory, pilot or start up/bridging or follow up actions. It may also cover relevant studies, networking, visibility, evaluation activities, as well as training or capacity-building activities. Support to the smooth finalisation of the Regional Housing Programme (RHP) is foreseen as one such priority. Contribution to other initiatives is added.2) Participation in EU agencies:The specific objective is to ensure that IPA III beneficiaries are able to participate effectively in the activities of EU agencies by supporting the approximation to and adoption of the EU acquis in areas such as fundamental rights, transport, competitiveness, environment and climate change, chemicals management, health, food and medicines safety, inter alia.It supports EU agencies by allowing them to carry out preparatory measures with the IPA III beneficiaries and stakeholders in view of their future participation in those EU agencies upon membership or earlier. It will also support the development of reporting standards in the Beneficiaries in line with the Sofia Declaration on the Green Agenda and the Decarbonisation Roadmap. The support aims as well at knowledge transfer and capacity building in the area of expertise of those EU agencies.3) TAIEX:The Technical Assistance and Information Exchange instrument (TAIEX) aims to provide peer-to-peer technical assistance and capacity building by supporting the IPA III beneficiaries in the alignment with, and implementation of the EU acquis, according to the demands of beneficiaries and the strategic priorities of the EU.TAIEX supports short and medium term, demand-driven and strategically oriented assistance and is complementary to, and works alongside other instruments and programmes to help the IPA III beneficiaries move towards their goal of EU accession. In addition, TAIEX supports top-down requests based on jointly agreed priorities between the EU and the IPA III beneficiaries, in areas such as green and digital transition or COVID-19 recovery.The assistance is mainly provided by EU public sector experts sharing their knowledge and experience through workshops, expert missions and study visits. TAIEX assistance supports beneficiaries to align progressively with the EU acquis and to improve their working methods in line with EU standards, as monitored and verified by the European Commission's specific screening and / or annual progress reports, as well as through peer review missions.In specific circumstances, when expertise from beneficiaries is of particular significance to other beneficiaries and it provides an added value, experts from beneficiaries can take part in the activities to provide expertise in the approximation to EU legislation, standards and practices (e.g. adoption of green transition measures. This participation comes as an effective complement to the knowledge provided by the EU Member States¿ experts, which remains the core of the activities of TAIEX, while developing a multi-stakeholder approach enriching the instrument with regional cooperation.TAIEX has a longstanding and su