Municipal Management and Budget Transparency
Eurasia Partnership Foundation has worked with a highly experienced team of local consultants to develop a standard set of indicators to assess the performance and capacities of municipal structures. These performance indicators generate a systematic approach to municipal planning and identify necessary for professional development of local government staff. Complementing these efforts, EPF is partnering with three local organizations – Democracy Learning, the Economic Research Centre and Potential – to strengthen the current strategic planning and public outreach activities of municipal structures in the Sumgayit and Khachmaz regions.
The goal of the program is to improve public transparency and the strategic planning capability of Azerbaijani municipalities through a systematic process of monitoring and evaluation of municipal performance in local service delivery. During the first phase of the program the following activities have been fulfilled:
- Up to 100 principle staff trained from 20 municipalities in the application of EPF’s Municipal Performance Measurement System (MPMS), designed to monitor the progress of municipalities in their local service provision
- Data on performance of 20 municipalities according to 100+ indicators collected and independently verified
- Online clearinghouse (Web site) created for storage, analysis and public access to data on performance of each municipality
- Public hearings held in each municipality to raise awareness of the results of the data collection
- Up to 10 small scale grants ($1,000-$3,000) provided on a competitive basis to municipalities with low capacity but commitment (as demonstrated through program participation) to conduct public outreach campaigns to raise awareness in local communities on the results of the MPMS
- Final report on results, lessons learned, and recommendations on future application of MPMS
- International conference on best practices in measuring municipal service delivery, featuring case studies presented by experienced EPF partners including Institute of Urban Economics (Russia) and Urban Institute (U.S.)
- Multi-level Working Group created to regularly monitor progress in implementation of the system. Officials at the Ministry of Justice have already indicated commitment to be involved with this cross-sector working group, which will also include independent experts, representatives of civil society organizations, businesses and local government.
Unpaid Internship Announcement: Assistant to Chief Accountant
Call for Participants: GETTING INVOLVED!
Lecture: Eight versions of the post-communist city
Presentation: 2009 CRRC Research Fellowship
