Partnership for Good Governance and Local Development

Goal
Enforcing and promoting Good Governance and local development through participatory mechanisms

Partners

Pro Democracy Association (PDA) and the Media Monitoring Agency (MMA)

Main Activities

• Creating Citizen Initiative Groups (CIG) at the level of two pilot rural communities, training and assisting their members in order to draw up the community profile and the evaluation of the local governance quality in each community.
• Strengthening the Citizen Initiative Groups, on the basis of a consultative process (public discussions, facilitated group discussions, debates in accordance with the Romanian law of decisional transparency, etc.), initiated and supported by the members of these groups in the pilot communities. Within this activity, the stakeholders' groups at community level will be consulted with regards to the results obtained following the community profiling and the evaluation of local governance quality.
• Involving the members of the CIG in a participatory strategic planning process and elaboration of local development strategic plan using good governance mechanisms. Assisting the members of these groups in consulting all stakeholders regarding the strategic plans and finalizing the plans following the consultations. Assisting the CIGs in elaborating action plans and implementing the strategic plans.
• Analysis of the documents/studies produced throughout the project and integration of the practical experiences in a "Guide of Good Practices for Consolidation of Good Governance Mechanisms and Local Development". Creation of a document presenting the results of the project, in order to promote the project and public consultations within other 10 rural communities and before central and regional public institutions.

The Current Stage

• After a first phase of the project - during which the Citizen Initiative Groups formed and the local development strategies were elaborated (with input from the CIGs) in the two communities (Plenita and Odobesti) - the project partners together with the CIGs started to work for the quality of the local governance. Thus, the local PDA Clubs, with assistance from CeRe and MMA, realized the assessment of the local governance quality and proposed improvement measures.
• The evaluation reports were finalized during meetings of CIGs facilitated by CeRe. During the meetings the citizens had also the opportunity to speak their mind about the local governance and formulated actual requests towards the local public authorities.
• In Odobesti, as a follow up of such a meeting, the CIG members, supported by CeRe and the PDA, addressed a letter to the Local Council, requesting the locally elected councillors to actively participate in the socio-political life of the community, through public meetings, monthly hearings and yearly activity reports. During the first session of the current mandate each councillor received a copy of the letter.
• In Plenita, the participants gathered and "split the hair of good governance in four" and required the Mayor and the Local Council to: publish a newsletter, make public the Local Council's agenda, meet periodically with citizens, etc.

[The project "Partnership for Good Governance and Local Development" is financed by the European Union through Phare, the programme "Consolidating Democracy in Romania".]