At the beginning of January 2015 Congress of Local Authorities from Moldova (CALM) and its Slovak partners, Pontis Foundation and Association of Towns and Communities of Slovakia (ZMOS) started the implementation of the common project Independent Local Government. The project is financed by the SlovakAid – Official Development Assistance of the Slovak Republic.
The project is reacting on current process of decentralization implemented in Moldova where the mutual agreement of the involved parties is possible only via communication and discussions between the relevant and prepared partners. The ability to build partnerships on multi-level basis, to cooperate, initiate and make informed decisions is the necessity for public representatives, public institutions, local governments representatives, elected representatives, as well as non-profit organizations, associations and business sector. The public understanding of the process, its necessity and consequences is the essential part of the successful implementation of the reforms.
Slovak society came through the process of decentralization in previous decade. It uncovered strong as well as weak aspects of decentralization. Even though the decentralization might been seen as accomplished, in reality the process continues and will continue. The development of the society brings constantly the new challenges. The cooperation between Moldova and Slovakia stands on sharing the positive as well as negative experiences in the process of decentralization.
The main objective of the project is to strengthen the position and performance of local government in Moldova as a key foundation for the power decentralization, application of participatory democracy and creation of stable functioning democratic state.
The project consists of number of activities, mainly aimed of finding the solutions within the created working groups aimed on strengthening the internal capacities of CALM, public communication and multi sectoral dialogue, meetings and trainings of local representatives and public communication campaign. The project will last for 15 months till March 2016.
For more information about the project, please contact Irina Luncasu: irina.luncasu@calm.md.
