|
Subcontract to The Urban Institute (USA), under USAID funding.
Start Date: November 2001; Completion Date: December 2002
Component I: Assure citizen participation in local government decision making process.
A very important toolkit prepared at the end of this project is the Citizen participation Toolkit. This toolkit has first offered the rationale for developing and supporting citizen participation in public administration. Local government leaders have become increasingly committed to the value of participation by citizens and they have been engaged in a search for the tools to do so effectively.
The activity has generated outputs to assist local governments into educating citizens on service issues and fees, and in linking municipal service improvements with the citizen public service concerns. The activity included production of methods for direct involvement of citizens in working with local governments to address and solve issues related to improvement of public service delivery. Training of local government elected officials and their administration was one of main project activities.
The “Cost and Fees Setting” manual produced on this phase is available at URI or UI office.
Component II: Develop methodology and conduct pilot inventory and transfer of public properties to local government units.
URI has solely developed and implemented regulations, and has conduced inventory of public property in 7 local government units, involving municipalities and communes. Nation wide used instructions and forms for inventory and transfer of public properties were prepared, tested and approved by the Ministry of Local Government and Decentralization. A manual to help state institutions to cope with legislation requirements concerning inventory and transfer of properties is produce, published and is currently in use from local and central institutions.
Under this component, URI has assisted the Group of Experts for Decentralization and the Ministry of Local Government to conduct meetings and roundtables concerning the transfer of water function to LG units. The main product of this component as solely assembled a Policy Paper on the Decentralization of Water Sector in Albania.
URI has also drafted a guidance document for the definition of functions and responsibilities of Regional Councils in Albania. The document was delivered to the Ministry of Local Government as a tool for opening and conducting the discussions on the role regional council in Albania, involving donor organizations and other local stake holders
Component III: Implementing Performance Management in 10 Cities, as Applied to Local Government Budget Process in Albania
Performance Period: May 2003 – March 2004
Activities include:
-
Participate in and support workshops organized to provide the assistance to local officials in their efforts to implement performance management in their cities. These workshops provided management concepts and methods to be used for the budget preparation.
-
Prepare a survey instrument that 3 cities and 1 commune used to determine how their citizens view the services provided by the local government where is the greatest demand for new or improved services.
-
Implement the survey
-
Tabulate and analyze the results of the survey in each city
-
Present the results to the local government in each city
The other group of activities includes:
-
Provide recommendations on Librazhdi water system in order to identify and analyze the various options that exist to divide or share as they prefer the ownership of the property of the existing water system
-
Analyze key financial issues regarding the system specifically the budget implications of accumulated liabilities and deferred maintenance of the water system and the need for continued operating subsides, if any, to determining how these burdens will be distributed and financed between the local and nation government.
|
