Traditional form of international cooperation between two municipalities is twinning through signing an Agreement for Twinning .

The result of this form of cooperation is usually the exchange of official delegations . The partnership would usually involve only representatives of local authorities, business and cultural institutions . Citizens are not always well-informed and do not show any interest about the twin cities of the Municipality and would usually result of this . There is a lack of dialogue between civil organizations within the twin cities .

The provision of opportunity to citizens and their organizations to build and participate in international partnerships, which are beneficial for the communities of both twin cities, contributes to the increase of effectiveness of twinning, to the involvement of citizens in finding solutions to problems in cooperation and to the provision of a new source of corrective ideas and recommendations .

Municipality City of Dobrich has established partnership relations with municipalities from Romania, Hungary, Turkey, Macedonia, Russia, Belarus, China, Great Britain, Poland, and Greece . In order to activate citizen participation and to introduce to the community with international contacts, a Concept on International Cooperation, accompanied by an Action Plan were elaborated . Accent in the new concept is partnership at the level of citizen societies .

The first step was to analyze the field of the respective NGOs in Dobrich and performing formal correspondence to identify equivalent organizations from the twin cities . Follow-up activities were related with acquainting and introducing both sides . At a meeting of NGOs from Dobrich and an expert in international cooperation were introduced international contacts of the Municipality, current trends and future perspectives.

A Power Point multimedia presentation introduced all attendants to the achieved results in the field of international activities of Dobrich City Municipality . The presentation aimed at helping non-governmental organizations to establish contacts with analogical organizations from other municipalities . The advantage of already established contacts of the Municipality, envisaging the coming EU membership, was cooperation relations with two municipalities members of EU Municipality of Novi Sonch, Poland and Municipality of Zalaegerseg, Hungary . During the presentation both sides agreed on the idea that together Local authorities and Non-governmental organizations should activate these partnerships .

After the meeting formal correspondence between the twin cities and Dobrich City Municipality was exchanged and contact information on current NGOs was provided . These were provided to non-governmental organizations in Dobrich, which are currently managing these contacts and developing joint projects and events . Under the imitative of Municipality City of Dobrich and within close partnerships with NGOs, first contacts between citizen organizations from Dobrich and Saratov Russia, Pinsk Belarus, Karklareli Turkey, Zalaegerseg Hungary, Konstanca Romania, Novi Sonch Poland, Kavadartci Macedonia, Ismail Ukraine, Golmud China, were established .

- Municipality City of Dobrich has elaborated a Concept on International Cooperation, in accordance with the challenges of the coming EU membership ;

- In the process of developing the Concept of Municipality City of Dobrich, citizens and their organizations participated and suggested alternative ideas and solutions for activating international contacts ;

- Introducing the practice to establish contacts between NGOs enlarged the opportunities for citizens to participate in cultural, economic, educational and social exchange between Municipalities ;

- Partnership between local authorities is a good approach to strengthen regional and local government ;

- Partnerships concern specific programmes, functioning on the base of EU projects ;

- The share of experience between municipalities and non-governmental organizations from EU members and candidates will contribute to the effective utilization of EU structural funds resources .

Municipality City of Dobrich has always identified international cooperation and partnership among its priorities . The results of international contacts and relationships are beneficial to businesses, non-governmental organizations and citizen groups in the city .