Background

One of the goals of the Trakya Regional Association of Municipalities is to encourage cooperation in the implementation of long-term local government strengthening and sustainable development strategies. Due to the restrictive financial environment in which the municipalities are forced to operate, seeking alternative funding sources is becoming extremely important. Despite the increasing information flows on financial support opportunities offered by different donor programs and funds, a great deal of the information remains unused by the municipalities. This is mainly due to the lack of knowledge in this new area and the lack of trained local staff that could work on projects.

Practice

The General Assembly of the Association considered the above-mentioned problems and the need to have Association experts that could provide consultations to member municipalities in the development of projects. As a result, the General Assembly made a decision to establish a specialized expert unit. The unit s operations are funded by USAID.

The unit was established in the beginning of July, 2000. Initially, it was staffed by the Association s executive director and project coordinator and an external legal expert. At first, the unit focused on preliminary studies of the environment within member municipalities. The goal was to identify priorities and set up specific activities with regard to contacts with donors and development of successful projects. The following steps were made:

The mayors of member municipalities were sent a letter asking them to identify the priority areas in which their municipalities needs donor funding, to share their experience with regard to project implementation and to identify municipal employees who could work on projects.
A questionnaire was developed for the preliminary study. The questions were related to unemployment, birth and death rates, educational levels, type and quality of communications, major activities.
For less than two months, the staff visited all Association member municipalities and had meetings with mayors and municipal employees to identify the unit s priorities for each municipality. Presented were current programs offering specific opportunities to the municipalities.

The meetings helped the unit s staff to get a clear idea of the individual municipalities needs, their human and economic resources, as well as the opportunities for the successful implementation of projects that could later be replicated by other municipalities.

One of the priorities of the unit was to establish a network of municipal experts who would work closely with the unit s experts. In November 1999, the unit organized a Successful Projects seminar. The purpose of the seminar was to improve municipal employees skills to develop projects and to update their knowledge about donor programs. Seminar facilitators included highly qualified lecturers from the Foundation for Local Government Reform. As a result of group work, the participants generated interesting ideas for projects, exchanged experience and best practices about donor programs.

Results

The specific results of the unit s work can be measured by the development of two projects in partnership with the municipalities of Maglizh and Elhovo. Funding for these projects is pending. The unit developed a database including information on the population and the unemployment within the municipalities, the structure of the municipal administrations, the experience in long-term leasing and in the development of long-term development strategies. As a result of the Successful Practices seminar, 20 municipal employees acquired specific skills related to project development.