Eurasia Regional Section of the World organization "United Cities and Local Governments"
Eurasia Regional Section of the World organization "United Cities and Local Governments"
Preparation for the Third Global report on democracy and decentralization has been started as part of a research project of UCLG “Global Observatory of Local Democracy " (GOLD).
The "Global Observatory of Local Democracy » (GOLD) was launched by the World Organization "United Cities and Local Governments" in 2005. Its aim is to identify best practices in the field of local self-government and promote its dissemination. Regular monitoring of the state of local government as well as its problems and analysis of possible solutions, creating a stable system of exchange of information, development of recommendations and their dissemination are carried out to accomplish these goals, Report on results of studies is published every three years.
The First Global Report showed the general state of local authorities and local self-government in the world. The second Global Report covered local finances.
The Third Global Report covering public services is being prepared now. The advisory committee has already been formed. It consists of experts on local government for public services, general secretaries of the regional offices of UCLG, members of the committee on decentralization and democracy and regional coordinators of the project (a total of about 60 people). Eurasian section of UCLG and experts from the Institute of Economics of the city will be involved in preparation of report on Eurasia. The research of Eurasian cities will include the following countries: Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Armenia, Georgia, Moldova. Eurasian section of UCLG wants to include Azerbaijan and Mongolia in the report too. The overall report will include information on small and medium-sized cities. A different research will be conducted on metropolitan cities.
The first meeting of the GOLD III Steering committee took place in Barcelona on February 13-14. During the meeting main regional features of the research and possible difficulties in the generalization of different countries were brought to light. The main problem in preparing a report on the Eurasian region is an unclear division of powers between the regions and places. A situation when local authorities are legally empowered to solve a specific issue but regions have the finances to do that is quite often.
Main areas of research have also been identified: water supply, local transport, electricity, solid waste and heating.
Mayors and housing and communal services will be interviewed about the quality of provided public services as the first stage of the research. During the meeting some changes in prepared questionnaires were made and questions were adapted according to peculiarities of regions.
At the suggestion of the scientific coordinator of the project GOLD III, British expert of the International Institute of Environment and Development David Satterthwaite it was decided to include top 20 innovative practices of cities in the provision of public services in the publication of the Third Global report on democracy. The participants of the meeting have confirmed plans for report preparation in each region. Publication of the Third Global Report will be presented to the international community during the 4th World Congress of UCLG in Rabat (Morocco) in 2013.
17.02.2012
