“First regional meetings for cross-border cooperation, sustainable development, territories and decentralised cooperation in the Balkans” was held on July 3-4 in Sofia. The event was organised by the Steering Committee established for this occasion, with the participation of French local governments engaged in the Balkans, United Cities of France, and other French organisations active in the field of local self-government. The French Ministry of Foreign Affairs the French embassy in Sofia and National Association of Towns and Municipalities of the Republic of Bulgaria (NAMRB) supported its organisation.

 

Affairs the French embassy in Sofia and National Association of Towns and Municipalities of the Republic of Bulgaria (NAMRB) supported its organisation.

Around 150 representatives of local and regional authorities from France and from the region participated at the conference, and exchanged experiences, best practices and opinions of different challenges they are facing, in the fields of sustainable development, environment protection, decentralized cooperation, strengthening institutional capacities of local authorities, cross-border cooperation, national heritage, cooperation for territorial development.

NALAS was represented at the event by Mr. Vladimir Moskov, vice-president of NALAS, who presented the activities of the network at the forum dedicated to decentralised cooperation in practice, and by Mr, Radomir Kezunovic, president of the Association of Towns and Municipalities of Republic of Srpska, who presented NALAS in the plenary session on synergies of actors for territorial development.

Mr. Kezunovic speech:

- Synergies of actors for territorial development -

The role of NALAS in capacity building and networking of local authorities of South East Europe

Ladies and gentlemen, dear colleagues,

It is my honor to address you at this important event that gathered together local authorities of the Balkans, to speak on behalf of NALAS and present its activities that contribute to strengthening local authorities in South East Europe. I am the Mayor of East Sarajevo and as a delegate of NALAS Assembly, I can say that we have invested a lot in developing this network and finally the fruits of these efforts are beginning to impact the development of our national associations. I will share with you in my presentation some of the recent NALAS activities which have just started and which will certainly influence the territorial development in South East Europe in the years to come.

Let me start with basic information about the profile of the network.

As the network of associations of local authorities of South East Europe, NALAS gathers 13 associations from the region, representing over 4000 units of local governments, elected by more than 80 million citizens of this region. As NALAS has started to produce results and raise interest of different actors, besides many new partnerships established, the Turkish Association of Municipalities of Marmara Region recently joined the network. Also a cross membership is established with CEMR. Three NALAS member countries already joined EU, while others are making significant progress in their EU integration paths.

The network exists from 2001 as an informal platform for exchange of experiences supported mainly by the Council of Europe and the Stability Pact, while from 2005 NALAS became official organization, and started to implement joint regional projects. The Swiss and German governments are the main current supporters of NALAS activities. The Dutch government may soon join.

In South –East Europe, there is an obvious need for regional cooperation. Let me explain this.

The NALAS network is characterised with distinctive similarities of major problems in their system of local government. The similarities come from the context in which the local government has been developed in the past: most of the countries inherited a public administration from the socialist period; the process of decentralization of authorities started more or less in the same period which overlapped the transition of the political systems and EU integration efforts; finally, there were severe armed conflicts in the region which disturbed the above processes.

In the other hand different NALAS members have received extensive international support in enhancing specific areas of the system of local governance. Hence, there are good models all around. There is no certain pattern. Some countries are good in administering with property taxes, some others in developing formula for transfer of government grants. This creates very good ground in exchanging experiences. Each member can learn from other experiences no matter how high they rate in terms of the overall system of local governance. There are high odds that a good model which is coming from a NALAS member can be easily replicated in another NALAS member because of the above said reasons.

NALAS promotes the process of decentralization by developing the synergies of different actors in the region.

The activities are focused in strengthening the local government associations, their co-operation with central governments and international organizations. The local self-government is considered as a key issue in the current process of transition affecting the various countries in South-East Europe. NALAS builds partnerships in order to contribute to the reconciliation and stabilization process in the region and henceforth contributes to the process of the European integration of the whole region.

NALAS initiates and carries out regional initiatives for its members and helps the associations to become viable representatives of local authorities vis-à-vis central government. NALAS aims to provide services to local governments for the benefit of the citizens in the region and develops itself as the knowledge centre for local government development in South-East Europe, recognized among all relevant stakeholders.

The NALAS approach is very practical.

NALAS helps the members identify their common challenges / problems of local authorities and develop model solutions coming from NALAS members or other EU experiences.

For that purpose, NALAS has established working groups at experts' level in the fields of Fiscal Decentralization, Urban Planning, Solid Waste Management, Energy Efficiency, etc. This exchange of information and best practices is being institutionalized through the NALAS Knowledge Center.

Through the existing Task Forces, which are gathering municipal experts from all NALAS countries in relevant fields, NALAS implements projects with purpose to strengthen both associations and municipalities in the region. Within the projects, comparative analyses are produced, as well as guidelines, best practices and capacity building programs.

The main source of knowledge is the NALAS network itself and networking activities with other national and international institutions.

By joining efforts and knowledge existing within member associations, NALAS activities represent good practice in efficient synergy between local authorities in the region, and give added value to documents produced. Local authorities and its associations are getting acquainted with good and bad examples from other countries, which, among other, can support them in negotiating with central governments.

Besides strengthening regional cooperation of local authorities, NALAS also supports its members in building partnerships with relevant stakeholders at national level (environmental agencies, NGOs, universities) and international level (EU partners and EU institutions, as well as international organizations active in the field of local self-government). In these efforts to strengthen local governance in South-East Europe, bringing it in line with the European standards, NALAS operates in accordance with the principles set forth in the European Charter of Local Self-Government and works with a wide array of international partners and donors. NALAS is closely affiliated with the Congress of the Council of Europe, but NALAS has also acquired observer status to the Committee of the Regions (EU), and has good working relations with FEDRE, LGI, the Council of European Municipalities and Regions, the Austrian Associations of Cities, Cites Unies France and the Council of Europe’s Centre of Expertise for Local Government Reform.

To conclude,

NALAS is proud that after 2 years of active functioning, it confirmed and proved the importance of networking and development of partnerships at regional level, especially for local authorities that are often being neglected by national governments and, as the process of EU integration progresses, get more and more responsibilities and tasks, but not enough information and resources. By building strong multilateral partnerships NALAS gives strong support to local governments in overcoming common challenges they are facing in the region.

Thanks you for your attention.

NALAS members were also present at the event and the mayors from the whole region presented their best practices in the above mentioned fields.

Some of the conclusions of the meeting are that the involvement of all actors is crucial for successful decentralised cooperation, that LGAs should be catalyst for decentralisation process, that it’s necessary to build capacities of local authorities through training which would be regulated by national training strategy and by the law, to enforce people to people actions at local level, as well as to exchange permanently good and bad practices and to learn from EU experiences.