EU PROGRES

Municipality representatives from Jablanički and Pčinjski Districts, the Ministries for Construction and Urbanism, Regional Development and Local Self-Government, Finance and Economy, as well as the Standing Conference of Towns and Municipalities (SCTM) participated together in the workshop titled “Vertical Dimension of Good Governance – Relation between Local Self-Government Units and Central Government Bodies” organised 27 February – 1 March on Mountain Zlatibor. This was the last of three planned workshops related to vertical dimension of good governance organised by EU PROGRES with support from the European Union and the Government of Switzerland.

The participation of representatives from ministries and SCTM has been vital for the entire process, because working together with them local self-government representatives have been able to present directly the obstacles they face, as well as to exchange experiences from different positions. Ministry representatives had the opportunity to get better acquainted with the challenges faced by municipal staff in their daily work, with the effects of inadequate legal solutions, unclearly defined processes, incomplete procedures, lack of communication and coordination.            

“Such workshops are a good way for local self-governments and central government bodies to exchange opinions and simultaneously identify ambiguities and issues within their own institutions as well as in cooperation between them. It is very useful to see the local self-governments exchange experiences and procedures in responding to client requests between one another, as well as that the representatives of highest-level government are getting information about the problems that occur in implementation as well as the effect of specificities of certain areas such as different levels of development, human resource issues, the ratio between original and delegated responsibilities or the number of employees,” Zorica Čolović Subotić, Assistant Minister of Construction and Urban Planning said.

“We were able to discuss certain issues at the workshop in direct contact between the representatives of the local self-government and the central government regarding original and delegated responsibilities assigned to local self-governments. In addition to problems, best practice examples in cooperation between central-level and local-level bodies were also presented. In a constructive atmosphere we encountered understanding from the representatives of line ministries, and concrete solutions for improvement were proposed to many of the defined problems. SCTM will include a number of good proposals from the workshop in some of their running activities, in accordance with the organisation’s plans for the coming period,” Klara Danilović, Urban Planning and Housing Board Secretary, Standing Conference of Towns and Municipalities, said.               

The aim of the overall process and EU PROGRES initiative is for the results from the workshops to be translated into concrete recommendations and presented to central government bodies and SCTM in order to improve the work of local-self government units and to improve mutual cooperation.