Moldova: Strengthening of local governance through improving transparency of local budgets

Description:

The project aims to increase awareness at the community level of the importance and benefits of the transparent and open process of discussion over the community's annual budget, taking into account the various stakeholders' interests and strategic plan for the community development, as well as local governments' capabilities to perform independently in this area as a model for small rural communities.

The project will will start with the selection of the target communities, where a survey of the communities needs in terms of budget planning and preparation will be assessed, including available human resources and stakeholders. Based on these needs, openness for co-operation and change, up to 10 local governments will be competitively selected to be included in the project activities. Specific trainings on how to conduct public hearing on budget will be conducted in all selected local governments, including the preparation of the budget analysis, budget in brief for discussion with main stakeholders, and presentation of the mayor. A three day study tour for representatives of the selected local governments to Poland will be conducted in order to learn about the budget process from similar local governments, including their needs and priorities, as well as funding options. The next step is the organization of real public hearings on budgets in the selected communities. To evaluate the project impact we presume the conduction the ex-post survey of the population from the targeted group and comparison group of communities. As a result of the entire project the analytical report and case study write-up will be performed based on the project experience in order to disseminate best practices throughout similar communities around Moldova and highlight the needs of small rural communities in Moldova. Presentation of the report and project results will take place at the final conference, as well as publication and dissemination of the report.

General results - up to 10 communities will benefit from a targeted assistance to increase peoples' awareness of local budget priorities established via a participatory process involving main local stakeholders.

Specific results - increased human capacity of the officials from the selected local governments to prepare and conduct on their own by the time of project completion the public hearings on budget based on provided methodology. It is expected that about total 40-50 people from these local governments (mayors, counselors, accountants, tax collectors, secretaries, local NGOs etc.) will benefit from the project training activities.

Sustainable results - a replicable model for small rural communities will be established and disseminated based on case studies of the project activities in the selected communities.

Partner:

CASE Moldova

Sponsors:

Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Central European Initiative
WestLB Polska S.A.