On Friday, 21 May 2021 NALAS organized a Regional Workshop on Local Government Functions and Finance in the Changing Urban Rural Interplay in South-East Europe within LoGov.
On Friday, 21 May 2021 NALAS organized a Regional Workshop on Local Government Functions and Finance in the Changing Urban Rural Interplay in South-East Europe within LoGov.
At the workshop moderated by NALAS Knowledge Manager, Ms. Jelena Janevska, the main focus was on the practices developed by experts from NALAS and its member LGAs on the first two Work Packages:
- Local functions and public services
- Local financial arrangements
Mr. Elton Stafa, Expert from NALAS presented on the Decentralised Early Childhood Education in Albania. Mr.Stafa shared that one of the biggest challenges in Albania is the outdated finacing system that does not reflect social and demographic developments, thus amplyifing serious inequites in teacher/pupil ratios.
Mr. Viorel Girbu, Expert from the Congress of Local Authorities from Moldova provided inputs on The regulation and financing of local responsibilities in the education sector in Moldova. He highlighted that administrative and financial decentralization in Moldova is hindered by the high fragmentation of the LPAs, hence resulting with limited capacity of communes to manage public services in the social domain.
Mr. Dario Runtić taked about the Firefighting services in Croatia. Mr. Runtic emphasized that the rural local governments have lower fiscal capacity and fewer inhabitans than urban local governments, making it more difficult for rural local government to provide equally efficient firefighting service.
Following the presentation of the research work in the areas of local competences, public services and financial arrangements; the workshop was further enriched with inputs and suggestions for other practices to fully capture the different challenges faced by urban and rural communities in SEE.
Valuable contributions were offered by the following regional and international experts:
- Fran Brahimi, Agricultural University of Tirana and Director, Ministry of Finance of Albania
- Sabina Ymeri, Local Government Expert, ESA Consulting
- Merita Toska, Researcher, Polis University, Co-PLAN, Institute for Habitat Development
- Aleksandar Marinković, Head of Department for Strategic Planning and Public Policies, Standing Conference of Towns and Municipalities of Serbia
- Ilmiasan Dauti, Local Government Expert, UNDP, university leacturer
- Francisco Velasco, Professor of Administrative Law, Autonomous University of Madrid
- Serge Allou, Special Advisor on Local Finance, UCLG World Secretariat
- Karl Kössler, LoGov, Eurac Research
The next Regional Workshop within *LoGov will be organized on 28th of May, with emphasis on Local Government Structures, Intergovernemntal Relations and People’s Participation in the Changing Urban Rural Interplay in South-East Europe.
*LoGov stands for Local Government and the Changing Urban-Rural Interplay and it aims to provide solutions for local governments to address the challenges that come along with increasing urbanization and the depopulation of rural areas and is funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 (www.logov-rise.eu).
Within the project, 18 partners from 6 continents identify, evaluate, compare and share innovative local government practices that cope with the impact of changing urban-rural relations throughout 5 key domains (WPs):
- Local functions and public services
- Local financial arrangements
- Structures of local governments (territorial organization, intermunicipal cooperation)
- Intergovernmental relations of local governments
- People’s participation in local decision making
