On the 5 July, 2007 in the town of Plovdiv, within the Fifth Annual Meeting of Local Governments in Bulgaria, “Successful municipal associations’ projects” panel, the Foundation for Local Government Reform awarded the winners in the thematic innovative practices competition for local government professional and regional associations.

The contest was announced in the framework of LOGIN Program and till the deadline for submitting practices - 8 June 2007 – 13 practices from 5 regional and professional associations were submitted.

On 15 June, 2007 FLGR announced online voting for the Choice of the Public Practice. In two weeks 330 visitors of the FLGR web page voted for a practice.

The website visitors and the members of the expert jury were led by the same 3 criteria in assessing the practices:

- timeliness;

- originality' and

- best proportion of costs - results.

2 practices with equal number of votes won the title Practice Choice of the Public within the on-line thematic competition: they were presented by the National Association of Secretaries of Municipalities in Republic of Bulgaria (NASM RB) and by the Union of the Bulgarian Black Sea Local Authorities (UBBSLA).

Winner in the thematic competition for Best Practice of regional/professional association of municipalities became Union of the Bulgarian Black Sea Local Authorities with the practice “Ener Bu ild: Public-Private Partnership For Integrated Improvement Of The Energy Characteristics Of The Municipal Buildings”. Ms Mariana Kuncheva, Executive Director of UBBSLA, received the award.

FLGR thanks cordially all the colleagues that took part in the competition and congratulates to the winners!

At the Annual Meeting of Local Governments in Bulgaria FLGR also disseminated the volumes 38/2007 and 39/2007of the Innovative Practices edition.