Summary:

Territorial self-governments, especially those at the local level, when lack-ing sufficient amount of own financial resources, are forced to search for external finances. Today, EU funds are one of the most important sources of this kind of financing. These funds aim at diminishing development disparities between old and new EU members. The aim of this paper is to characterize technical infrastructure investment project, realized in the rural areas in the region of Łódź in years 2004-2008, co-financed by The Integrated Regional Operational Programme (IROP, Polish abbreviation: ZPORR). This description includes not only material effects, but also economical, social and ecological ones.