cooperation

16th MEETING OF THE EASTERN PARTNERSHIP

PLATFORM 1: Democracy, Good Governance and Stability
Strengthening of local and regional democracy
5th of December 2016
Antonella Valmorbida, Secretary General of ALDA The European Association for
Local Democracy1
In this period of uncertainties, which leaves open many routes in front of us and decisions
to be made, the lists of things to be done for the sake of our communities are often long
and complex. Where to start and what to do ? The Countries of the Eastern Partnership,
and also many of us in the EU, face difficulties in social field and economic growth,
tensions between citizens and public authorities with distrust and lack of vision. Our task
today is also to identify priorities, to help to make the right thing at the right time and to
orient the policies of the EaP project, heading to the Summit in 2017. In the background,
we have the spectrum of international and global scenarios with external factors, which
are the Russian influence on our conversations and thoughts but also the unexpected
other elements in front of us, from a political global point of view, environment,
demography, health and more.
In this long list of problems and possible opportunities, our wish today is to share with
you a certitude: local democracy is a right thing to do and to promote for our
communities. Its implementation has a quick potential of success and it encompasses
different social, political and economic elements that could create the conditions for
better living. It is also easier to achieve since it implies a more manageable sets of
stakeholders than the national policies, oriented more by political dynamics, can get only
in longer terms. Mayors and local governments, local civil societies are under certain
1

Antonella Valmorbida is also coordinator of the Subgroup on Local Government and

Public Administration Reform of the Civil Society Forum for Eastern Partnership and
Board member of the European Partnership for Democracy

conditions extremely powerful instruments for change and improvement in a short

period of time, rebuilding trust between citizens and public affairs and being a instrument
of problem solving, unlocking potentialities even on difficult conditions often with low,
sometimes no financial resources. It rebuilds relations among people and creates genuine
networks at the local level.
As a matter of fact, decentralisation essential condition for the existence of local and
regional authorities as real active stakeholders in local democracy is among the
priorities of many of the countries of the Eastern Partnership Countries. We confirm here
that it must become a priority of the Eastern Partnership policies as such. On the other
hand, local democracy is not essentially a legislative and institutional process. It has its
anchorage in local elections, decentralisation processes and public administration reform,
of course, but it must be accompanied with a full understanding and involvement of
citizens that will experience the laws and these structural process and who will be able to
use them and be engaged. Without participative and aware citizens, laws and structure
are useless boxes and non-realistic instruments. For this reason, our efforts in building
good institutional frameworks, must include, since the very beginning awareness raising
and capacities within both the elected bodies and administration and civil society group
and citizens. Improvements of local and national situation will be the results of this joint
work. Local Democracy involves institutions and civil society dimension. Working at the
national level in terms of lobbying is of upmost importance. Indeed, national policies, in
the fields of local autonomy and decentralization , are key to local democracy since they
are drafting the local legislative context.
1. Local Democracy and support to decentralisation
As experienced in the EU member States, decentralisation is part of what is considered
fundamental to establish local democracy and to implement the principle of
subsidiarity: solve and address the problem closer to citizens, closer to the problem
itself. Citizens would then be motivated to act and in many ways they would choose the
best solution in present conditions, together with their representatives in local authorities.
Decentralisation is we are all aware is a hot political subject in the six Eastern
Partnership countries since it means reorganisation of the State, public administration
reform, distribution of powers, resources and competences. Decentralisation means
power and resources to local and regional governments, in a coordinated approach with
the State institutions and policies. Always, anywhere we go, decentralisation is linked to
fears of dismantlement and secessions and fear of missing control. But often, and it
proved to be so, decentralisation has been more an answer to problems and conflicts than
a problem. Unfortunately programmes and policies of the European Commission are still
not strong enough . Recently emerged some yet too modest actions to support local
democracy within the joint programmes with the Council of Europe. Our common
advocacy and lobby should put it as a priority. National and local development should be

put as a priority instead of political and security considerations. We already are heavily
behind on this chapter and peoples disappointment in many countries reached its height.
Radical rethinking of the policies and programs related to the most if not the single
democratic and trusted layer of public administration is a must. Too much channelling
funds to central governments in many instances produced counter-effects and people
have associated donors and programs as a source of support to governments and always
corruption scheme in developing countries.
2. Strong and real local/regional authorities
What mentioned above means also the creation and sustainability of strong and real local
and regional authorities, with resources related to competences, with elected bodies
accountable to citizens, with possibilities to engage with citizens in a permanent dialogue
to address common problems and unlock local and regional potentialities. Emphasis on
the role of local authorities in EaP has been put (on different dimension in particular
fiscal decentralisation) by the Corleap and by the Congress of the Council of Europe2.
Resources
The basic of these processes are well described in the European Charter of Local Self
Government ratified by five of the six EaP countries, which represent a guide for our
work. This represent a condition for having a real local democracy not distorting
expectations and possibilities. The exercise of putting on the local authorities shoulders
tasks they cant bear lack of resources, competences and leadership is
counterproductive. Resources to local authorities should be strengthened with direct
programmes. The proposal of Mayors for Economic Growth and the thematic Covenant
of Mayors represent an interesting opportunities and promised to be a good test for
giving local government a chance. Regranting schemes managed by local stakeholders
can also be taken into consideration as good option (the role of association of local
governments could be here empowered or other networks of local authorities). In this
case, small/medium grants for specific projects, oriented and managed in
cooperation with civil society, could be extremely positive and constructive with a giant
return on investment. A grant of 10.000 euro can bring a real action, involving
volunteering, time and good will and avoiding the appetite of the greater corruption not
interested in these too small funds.

http://www.coe.int/t/Congress/ and
http://cor.europa.eu/ro/activities/corleap/Pages/corleap.aspx

Leadership
Resources are not enough and needs to be accompanied by leadership and competences
in local and regional governments. Leadership is not always given naturally but can be
build and learned. Inquiries realized by ALDA in recent months proved that soft skills of
leadership, negotiation, team orientation, complex stakeholders scenarios and collective
visioning are among the skills that in many countries are often missing public authorities
in the EaP. Financial resources to build all that are too little. A particular effort can be
done here and we can mention the recent work of the Congress for supporting leadership
among mayors and elected official in EaP as well as citizens involvement. The results are
there to testimony the changes made by the Mayors leaders with their community
involved.
3. Citizens participation as a key of the success local democracy
The role of Civil Society in orienting and supporting local democracy in Eastern
Partnership countries is essential. The different forms of cooperation has been lengthy
and deep studied by the Subgroup on Local Government and Public Administration
Reform of the Civil Society Forum for Eastern Partnership3. In particular some of the
elements, are also the results of a shared work with different actors, including ALDA. A
recent report adopted by the Corleap emphasised a common need to work on citizens
participation at the local level in the Eastern Partnership Countries.
Establish trust for joint problem solving
Citizens participation is an attitude that must accompany local democracy policies. Local
Democracy regards cultural and systemic elements in the community. It is therefore
essential to consider the existence of the relation between institutions and citizens. The
legislation cannot be developed without considering a constant process of information,
dialogue and exchanges with citizens that will establish trust from both sides that will
then allow the laws/provisions to have a certain chance of being implemented. From this
perspective, trust between public authorities and CSO represent a challenge for all the
EaP. In these countries, generally speaking, there is a global problem as for the
recognition of the importance of laws and regulations The legislative processes exists and
sometimes can also be very good (i.e. the different legislative provisions existing in the
Armenian law as for citizens participation) but the problem stays in its implementation
and in the fact that, culturally, there is a gap between legislation and real perception and
recognition of its value. Among the major impediments for full-fledged civil participation
lack of interest of the people in local affairs coming from extremely scarce financial
resources with local governments often not enough for recurrent expenditures and weak
3

http://eap-csf.eu/

representative civil society. Therefore support for fiscal decentralization and for building
constituency of NGOs shall be in the frontline of the EU support
Joint awareness and capacity raising
Both local governments and civil society groups need to go through their own process of
capacity building, training and development. If we implement training for local
authorities (politicians and civil servants) the same should be done for citizens and CSOs.
The improvement should address both the part of the governance, institutions and civil
society. Only together local democracy produces it best results. These two components of
the governance (CSOs and public institutions) cant have a development and
improvement in parallel paths without meeting and crossing each other. They have to be
processes developing together and cooperating. At the same time must be mentioned
some serious fatigue of the people related to trainings and capacity building without
seeing much of the changes on the ground. Therefore innovative modalities should be
sought and first of all trainings should be organized on the concrete practical issues and
newly implemented reforms rather than on general principles and too theoretical
approaches. An important stakeholder is here the Centre of Expertise for Local
Government Reform4, being very active in implementing one of the specific themes
under the Partnership and Co-operation Agreement with the EU (PCF) as concerns the
strengthening of the institutional framework of local governance, namely, supporting the
ongoing process of reform of local government in participating countries through the
improvement of the financial resources management of local administrations on the basis
of European standards and benchmarking processes, expertise and best practices and
promoting inter-municipal co-operation. Reform in these fields should lead to offering
public services adapted to the expectations of citizens, the improvement of investment
climate and local economic growth and the positive feedback was reported from
Armenia, Georgia and Moldova, where the piloting of the country-adjusted CoE Local
Finance Benchmark is being currently completed.
Addressing structural problems to citizens participation
Considering the non finalized processes of decentralisation with a limited capacity of
local government to implement their competences, it is often quite difficult to understand
at which level consultation and dialogue with citizens is possible, the engagement of
citizens can be made difficult or impossible.
In many countries addressed, municipalities and local bodies are often (with some good
experience though) extremely weak and cannot implement fully their expected
competences For most of them, there is only one source for funding from the transfer
from the State. Some of the Local governments have hardly resources for a minimum
4

http://www.coe.int/t/dgap/localdemocracy/Centre_expertise/default_en.asp

functioning and they cannot represent a real centre of decision-making. Dialogue with
citizens is often perceived as the least important part of any development plan
Public institutions (more national and less local) are affected by corruption, which is
preventing a virtuous growth in democratic, social and economic terms. This affects a
construction approach to participation where citizens being involved in decision-making
process would refrain or non constructively be engaged.
In many countries of the EaP, the external factor and global partnership and issues
(with Russia, with the EU and other stakeholders) and their international security
problems (Ukraine, Azerbaijan and Armenia, and Georgia) are mobilizing attention,
resources and energies. In some of the countries addressed, it totalizing to a certain
extend that very other issues remain in the agenda of formal reform and plan.
And opportunities for citizens participation and local democracy
While working on decentralisation and new legislative setting, most of the countries
involved include citizens participation among the provisions of the laws. Some of
the countries are quite advanced and even in difficult circumstances and political
tensions, they proved to be brave and presented innovative way of inclusion, like in
Ukraine and in Armenia.
Not contradicting the above mentioned challenges, we should here mention the fact that
contrary to some of the countries of cooperation with the Europe is involved, the EaP
countries have functioning local governments and in some cases good
administration with brilliant staff and elected leaders. The Soviet past did not leave
only problems but also an educated society capable to undertake professional and
intellectual challenges.
Certainly, local governments and globally local communities are often not rich. But in
these circumstances, any good idea to multiply the local resources, including
volunteering, focus on citizens mobilisation, identification of common ideas and paths,
are certainly a good start for change.
4. Decentralised Cooperation and international engagement of local and regional
authorities as support to local democracy5
Decentralised cooperation and partnership support from local and regional authorities
from Europe to EaP countries, represent a powerful and effective instrument to support
local democracy. It engages experiences and people that are sharing their knowledge and
resources on a peer-to-peer exchange. The dialogue and joint work among local and
regional authorities from EU and from EaP have much more results in comparison of
5

Recommendation Local Authorities Actors for Development, http://eurlex.europa.eu/lexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=COM:2008:0626:FIN:EN:PDF

resources invested. It has also a second interesting outcome : it creates direct contacts
between communities, opening up the horizons not only of the local elected officials but
also of the communities. In these present times, it seems to be an essential added value to
deconstruct prejudices against the unknown foreigners, also maybe potential
enemies. Decentralised cooperation can pave the way concretely to use of good practices
and to develop also good and community-based economic and social growth. The
programme of PLATFORMA works extensively on this basis as well as programme of
the Local Democracy Agencies based in Ukraine, Armenia and Georgia and soon in
Moldova6. The regional and local authorities engaged in the Local Democracy Agencies
deserve more support for their fantastic work. The programme LADDER, Local
authorities and civil society working at the local level as multipliers for change and
promoters of development, is also a key reference in supporting this approach7. Local
Governments actors for development, which is at the basis of the concept of
Decentralised Cooperation, is also strongly emphasised in the recently approved
Sustainable Development Goals and their potential implementation at the local level8.
5. Final recommendations
Decentralisation, empowerment and more resources for local and regional authorities,
elected leadership accountable to citizens, with competences, resources and capacities
acting in dialogue with its citizens and Civil society groups well organised,
democratically lead, representatives of citizens - for addressing local issues the sake for
the whole community, is the priority we are suggesting for the Eastern Partnership in the
years to come.

www.alda-europe.eu
http://www.ladder-project.eu
8
For the tool kit localizing SDGs see
http://www.undp.org/content/brussels/en/home/ourwork/democratic-governance-andpeacebuilding/in_depth/UNDP-ART-local-authorities.html
7