 The concluding conference ‘Local Governance and Civic Engagement in Rural Russia’ was held in the Ministry of Trade and Economic Development of the Russian Federation on 25 April 2007. The aim of the conference was to distribute and discuss best practices and results of civic engagement and approaches to rural development, arising from the World Bank pilot project “Local Self-Governance and Civic Engagement in Rural Russia” (2004-07) and also to provide the foundation for discussions on concepts and directions for rural territorial development in Russia, paving the way for wider opportunities for real local governance in the context of recent decentralization legislation.
In the context of decentralization reforms, officials of relevant federal ministries (Ministry of Trade and Economic Development, Ministry of Regional Development, Ministry of Agriculture), leading experts in the Presidential Administration, and expert community (Urban Institute, Center for Fiscal Policy, Institute for Urban Economics, Center for Legal Support to Local Governance, Center of Economics and Financial development, Center of Strategic Research), and international development agencies (USAID, DIFID, CIDA, Fiscal Decentralization Initiative and others ) were shown the results of the World Bank pilot project ‘Local governance and Civic Engagement in Rural Russia’ carried out by Charities Aid Foundation Russia (CAF Russia) with the participation of a number of expert consulting organizations including Urban Institute, Institute for Urban Economics, Center for Fiscal Policy, Center for Legal Support to Local Governance, and others. During the conference, the following issues were discussed: Methodology and training on the budgetary process, preparing and holding budget hearings, training of municipal consultants on tri-partite cooperation between the authorities, population and business and on legal issues, Methodology and design of Service Improvement Action Plans (SIAP), cooperation between relevant stakeholders in implementing SIAPs, Role of Local Community Foundations in solving problems of rural settlements; Recommendations on legal support of rural local-self-governance and civic engagement and results of piloting model normative legal acts in pilot settlements; Improving the planning process in rural areas based on monitoring of public service delivery and citizens’ opinions about local priorities.
Heads of participating pilot rural settlements from Perm, Penza, and Republic of Adygeya presented their experiences on putting into practice new ways of working with citizens: involving local communities in creating and executing a local budget, local mobilization of resources to achieve community-defined priorities, and evaluating the results of local government activities.
Russian and international consultants of the project related their experiences of rural territorial development and adapting foreign experiences to rural Russia. In the center of attention was the need for Russia to make the transition from a narrow, agricultural approach to rural development to broader strategies to help rural areas overcome poverty. The conference was also an opportunity to highlight some of the results of analytical work carried out by Russian and international researchers to determine the quality of local governance and to identify a set of objective, transparent indicators to assess how well rural local administrations’ operate. World Bank experts presented preliminary results of a research study titled ‘What Do Russians Want? An Analysis of Citizens’ Preferences and Public Officials’ Knowledge of Citizens’ Preferences in Rural Russia¬’. Based on surveys of household and local officials in rural areas and on historical and other sources, this survey aims to analyze the context necessary for the successful development of local governance. A new publication presenting the results of the World Bank pilot study was distributed at the event. This book contains practical experiences of implementing local governance in rural Russia as well as studies assessing the quality of recent decentralization reforms and recommendations to the Russian government that could be introduced to improve local governance reforms in rural districts. Attachments: |
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