Improving access and quality of services to citizens – transparent, responsible and accountable local public administration

About this project

<p style="text-align: justify"><span style="font-size: 11pt"><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif">Law enforcement and translating policy into practice remains a challenge in Romania. According to the National Strategy for Strengthening Public Administration 2014 – 2020, the main liabilities/ obstacles that affect both government institutions, and the state as a whole, in fulfilling their responsibilities effectively, but also in&nbsp;achieving the&nbsp;proposed development objectives&nbsp;are: lack of transparency and an inefficient&nbsp;decision-making process, poor management of human resources in administration, excessive bureaucracy and reduced capacity to provide public services. </span></span></p> <p style="text-align: justify"><span style="font-size: 11pt"><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif">The main aim of this initiative is to strengthen local government capacity in Romania by increasing its accountability and transparency and by raising the awareness regarding incompatibility and conflict of interest. In order to achieve this, during the project&nbsp;an information center will be created during the project (e-TIC information center), that will supply information and consultancy through an on-line help-desk service to the representatives of the local authorities. Moreover training services for the representatives of the local authorities will be supplied, as well as exchange activities&nbsp; with similar organizations from Norway and Moldova will be organized (The Congress of the Local Authorities from Moldova).</span></span></p> <p style="text-align: justify"><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px">The target group is represented by 3300 employees of the local authorities and elected officials (of which 2000 beneficiaries from communes, 800 beneficiaries from municipalities, 300 newly-elected officials - mayors, deputy mayors and local councellor and 200 elected officials and department managers from 5 pilot communes and 3 municipalities).</span></span></p>

Bilateral cooperation results

The Norwegian partner, KS, was involved in all phases of the project's implementation. KS experts participated in all the training sessions with the project's beneficiaries, sharing and promoting good practice models from Norway in all four project areas: good governance, ethics and transparency, and incompatibility and conflict of interest. The bilateral activities also included five study visits to Norway, in which a total of 65 people, representatives of local authorities from Romania, participated. These visits included meetings with representatives from various local authorities (Moss, Elverum, etc.) in the donor state, with the agenda covering details about the Norwegian electoral system, local procurement strategies, social responsibility, urban regeneration, etc. After the project's completion, the Association of Communes of Romania and KS agreed to continue their collaboration, including by proposing initiatives for the future program.

Project partners

• Norwegian Association of Local and Regional Authorities Donor project partner· Norway
• Association of Municipalities in Romania Project partner· Romania