Achievements

●Facilitation of planning processes and implementation of projects (incl. financial management of project implementation),

● Human resource management strategy making and implementation (incl. Internal communication and basic skills training),

● E-Government strategy making and implementation

● Municipal quality management (CAF and ISO)

● Strengthening of civil society actors

● Innovations of direct participatory mechanisms and of municipal assemblies’/councils’ transparency

● Building partnership structures between LGs and civil society

● PR Strategy making and implementation

● Development of Youth Policies

● Raising of citizens' awareness of good local governance with media support

● Intermunicipal exchange of experience based on identified good practices (among MDP partner municipalities)

● Dissemination of experiences (in BiH, and regional around MDP partner municipalities)

● Cooperation between municipalities (incl. their associations) and policy dialogue actors

● Implementation of Policy dialogue activities (issues, actors, dialogue agenda)

● Coordination and Cooperation with other governance programmes

Facilitation of planning processes and implementation of projects (incl. financial management of project implementation)
• All partner municipalities for some type of strategic plans that will be jointly elaborated and implemented by MDP and the six partner municipalities. The municipal choices are:

• In Doboj, Doboj Istok, Usora and Petrovo the stakeholders have organized the planning structure and procedure by end of March 2006. Local Development Teams are created and Partnership Groups for Local Development are established with significant participation of local business, NGOs and local communities. Focus groups organized with key representatives of business communities, farmers and youth are created. The data collection and the socio-economic analysis of the municipalities are finalised and first steps of strategy making are undertaken. The capacities for all these activities have been trained.

• In Doboj Jug and Maglaj the first steps of the whole planning process have been done. The technical support will be performed by the Institute of Urbanism in Zenica (for Doboj Jug) and by the Institute of Urbanism in Sarajevo (for Maglaj). In addition Doboj Jug decided to perform public participation at a high quality level with the support of the Center of Urban Ideas (CUI) from Tuzla.

Human resource management strategy making and implementation (incl. Internal communication and basic skills training)
• Human Ressource management: On the basis of an MDP analyses, Izbor Plus and QMSI assessed the municipal needs in HRM. A plan for further facilitation of strategy making in HRM and capacity building for the implementation of HRM instruments and tools is ready to start.

E-Government strategy making and implementation
• E-Government: Experiences with good examples in the Doboj region (Tesanj and Gračanica) have been exchanged. The IMAG (session of Sept 2005) has approved the MDP decision to start an E-Government initiative with all municipalities (first half of 2006), starting with an overall assessment of municipal needs, resources and interests.

Municipal quality management (CAF and ISO)
• Municipal quality management: With the financial support of MDP Gracanica has applied the ISO quality management system. In all other municipalities the Common Assessment Framework methodology has been introduced. The mayors of all six MDP partners have expressed their intention to continue with the CAF model for self-evaluation of municipal work.

Strengthening of civil society actors
• Training of Trainers for “civic leaders” was delivered through six 2-day workshops and consisted of 21 topics relevant for the organizational strengthening, problem analysis, project designing, fund raising, media promotion and public advocacy activities on the side of the organized citizens’ groups. In January 2006, 15 civic leaders were awarded with certificates of trainers. The certified trainers will disseminate their knowledge to other MZ and NGO representatives within the MDP region over the year of 2006.

Innovations of direct participatory mechanisms and of municipal assemblies’/councils’ transparency
• Along with ToT, pilot MZ and NGO civic leaders have been engaged in preparatory activities with regard to the introduction of innovative mechanisms of direct citizen’s participation and transparency of MCs in MDP partner municipalities. Six municipal action planning teams consisting of LGs, MCs and civic leaders representatives have been created. They launch the process of drafting municipal decisions that tackle the following issues: public hearing procedure, survey as a problem prioritization tool in MZs, selection of NGO projects for municipal funding with criteria and transparency of MCs. A process of public hearings on first drafts of these decisions in all partner municipalities is ongoing.

Building partnership structures between LGs and civil society
• MDP has supported the establishment and functioning of a diversity of LG-CS partnership structures: Teams for drafting municipal decisions on transparency of MCs and mechanisms for improvement of direct citizens participation; municipal partnership group for development and implementation of Municipal LED Strategies (and others).

• Based on municipal workshops in the partner municipalities (“Through partnership towards faster local development”) main problems and obstacles in the information exchange and communication between all relevant stakeholders (of civil society and local governements) have been identified. Municipal multi-stakeholder action planning teams are established (Municipal Administration, Councillors, MZs and NGOs) and action plans (project proposals), consisting of priority projects, were identified.

PR Strategy making and implementation
• In the following of different seminars (concerning issues like job description for the Public Relations clerks/officers and the usage of radio and TV media for communication) for the persons involved in public relations activities in municipalities, MDP and the partner municipalities decided to launch a more systematic process of PR strategy making in all municipalities in cooperation with Media Centar (Sarajevo).

Development of Youth Policies
• MDP has identified and supported youth programmes and activities over the year of 2005. Since november 2005 MDP and SDC-CooF Sarajevo, which has co-financed this project, supports the implementation of the youth project “Get to know and claim your rights” with the Education Resource Centre, the implementing NGO from Doboj Municipality, covering the Municipalities of Doboj, Doboj Istok and Usora. The project is related to organisational and capacity development of youth organisations in rural areas these three municipalities.

Raising of citizens' awareness of good local governance with media support
• In cooperation with the SDC project “VEZZA” MDP has begun to offer (45 minutes broadcast) a monthly possibility for the Mayors of its partner municipalities to take part in the program of the local radio stations dealing with topics relevant for the work of local governance. Each month one of the Mayors takes part in an open-type exploring the work of local governance. Additionally and in cooperation with Radio “ZOS” MDP has begun to broadcast in the Doboj region the functioning of local governance in the municipalities.

• In cooperation with the EU funded waste management project (WMP) MDP supported a joint initiative of the waste awareness campaign which is focused on the Doboj Municipality but is encompassing the Doboj-Tešanj regional landfill area (10 municipalities). Related to citizens’ awareness on waste issues, MDP supported furthermore a part of the waste management campaign run by Petrovo Municipality during their action “April - Month of Clean Petrovo”.

Intermunicipal exchange of experience based on identified good practices (among MDP partner municipalities)
• The exchange of experiences has been facilitated by the strengthening of the Intermunicipal Advisory Group (IMAG) of mayors and different intermunicipal MDP working groups in different fields (such as the introduction of the CAF model, intermunicipal PR group, intermunicipal HRM group, joint events related to specific topics of strategic planning, training of trainers for civic leaders and others).

• A specific exchange opportunity offers the introduction of unique European standards and methodology as a general platform for the evaluation of local administrations in BiH according to the Common Assessment Framework (CAF) model which is planned as a BiH wide project.

Dissemination of experiences (in BiH, and regional around MDP partner municipalities)
Two main channels for horizontal and vertical dissemination of good local governance practices have been implemented:
• Competition of best practices of local governance in BiH 2005-2006, co-financed by MDP and OSF BiH. A total of 30 municipalities applied with 41 good practices in the three categories: efficiency, transparency and participation of municipal government. Five MDP partner municipalities applied. The evaluation and promotion of awarded best practices will be done in the first half of 2006. MDP and OSF are planning to ensure extensive follow-up and facilitate exchanges.
• MDP has participated in and contributed to the Beacon Scheme competition supported financially by the Governments of Great Britain and Switzerland, and implemented by the Council of Europe and OSCE in cooperation with the Associations of Cities and Municipalities as BiH partners. By end 2005, the total of 63 municipalities applied with 73 practices in the 3 selected topics (closer relation with citizens; promotion of Local Economic Development; and effective strategic planning. The evaluation process will be finalized in spring 2006.

Cooperation between municipalities (incl. their associations) and policiy dialogue actors
• The most significant partnership model in 2005 was initiated by the project for the “Creation of the Development Strategy for good local governance in BiH by domestic key-stakeholders”. the Partnership Group of this project consists of the most advanced municipalities in BiH, both entity Associations of Cities and Municipalities, international organizations, experts and practitioners who are committed to support the strategy making and implementation.

• The MDP Steering Committee has been more directed to the vertical integration of local governance issues by a change of the SC statutes and a respective discussions´ practice. Steering Committee activities have become desseminated by the increasing presence of media (press, TV, radio).

Implementation of Policy dialogue activities (issues, actors, dialogue agenda)
• The vertical impact of local governance issues and experiences in terms of a policy dialogue and of dissemination at higher state and entity levels have been prooved of high relevance, but have suffered so far from the passeve role taken by mature policy dialogue partners. A main starting point has been elaborated with the MDP supported project “Creation of the development strategy for local governance in BiH by key domestic stakeholders”. The main actors for the policy dialogue on higher level of entities and BiH (mainly higher level governments and sectoral offices, specific implementation agencies of higher level policies and others) have been discussed in MDP workshops in December 2005.

• Having in mind these experiences with the policy dialogue in the BiH context, MDP has concluded to follow a municipality based concept of policy dialogue. Such a concept assumes the assessment of the problems faced by the partner municipalities in the course of MDP activities (like development strategy making, urban planning, Human Resource Mangement, obstacles for citizens’ participation) with regard to the municipal relations with higher levels and legal or institutional framework conditions.

• The engaged public debate in October 2005 in Doboj concerning the constitutional framework in BiH for good local governance (organised as one module of the SDC programme on the BiH constitutional debate) has confirmed MDP in its endeavours for the integration local governance experiences with higher level caused framework restrictions.

Coordination and Cooperation with other governance programmes
• In order to avoid overlappings of international supported activities at municipal level and to utilise better possible synergies between different programmes (following the SDC strategy of harmonisation) the coordination and cooperation with other governance projects and organizations have been pragmatically continued and strengthened:
- Regular coordination meetings are held with OSCE offices in Doboj and Zenica. OSCE Doboj representative presented the Code of Ethics for elected representatives to MDP partners;
- Through Beacon Scheme competition in best practices of local governance, MDP supported efforts of the Council of Europe and OSCE;
- A coordination has been achieved with the UNDP/RMAP project;
- First steps in information exchange have been made with GAP;
- The formal cooperation and project co-funding scheme has been achieved between MDP and the EU funded waste management project (WMP);
- MDP has achieved synergies with some SDC projects in BiH (e.g. VEZZA).