Outcomes from first CIB & PLATFORMA country coordination calls (Ukraine and Morocco)
In the week of the 24th of June, CIB and PLATFORMA jointly organised country coordination calls on Ukraine and Morocco. Participants, representatives from local government organisations, working on capacity building programmes, shared information on their ongoing and future efforts. Realising that there is quite a lot of untapped potential, they also discussed ways to jointly approach the (international) donor community.
Who is doing what and where?
Since these were the first country coordination calls for the participants, a large part of the calls was dedicated to a tour the table, in which everyone presented what they are doing where, what trends they see and on which topics they work. Below you will find a short impression of what two participants shared in the Ukraine call:
- The Swedish Association of Local Authorities and Regions (SALAR) is currently implementing two projects in support to Ukraine’s decentralisation reform e.g. Support to Decentralisation in Ukraine (DSP) and the second component of the EU funded intervention U-LEAD with Europe (Ukraine Local Empowerment Accountability and Development Programme) 2016-2020. U-LEAD is EU’s largest support to Ukraine’s decentralisation reform with the overall objective to empower and strengthen the newly amalgamated communities in Ukraine through capacity building, policy development and more. The Programme implementation is delegated to GiZ and to Sida. Within the program, SALAR is one of Sida’s main implementing partner and works (through SKL International) directly with more than 400 newly amalgamated communities, developing individual Terms of Reference for the establishment or modernisation of local Administrative Service Centres (ASCs), a local “one-stop-shop” office for provision of service of many different national and local service providers. Since 2014, SALAR is implementing the Sida funded project “Support to Decentralisation in Ukraine” with the overall objective to contribute to strengthened democracy, improved governance and better service delivery to the citizens of Ukraine. SALAR contributes to this by supporting key actors and institutions for the decentralisation reform and give strategic assistance within a few key policy areas e.g. fiscal decentralisation and education decentralisation. Within the project, SALAR also provides institutional capacity building support to the Association of Amalgamated Territorial Communities (AATC).
Read more about U-LEAD on the programme’s website: https://tsnap.ulead.org.ua/en/
Read more about Support to Decentralisation on the project’s website: http://sklinternational.org.ua/en/
- VNG International is contributing to the new five-year programme of USAID’s Democratic Governance East (DG East), implemented by Chemonics International. DG East aims to strengthen the connection and trust between citizens and their government in eastern Ukraine by promoting good governance and an inclusive civic identity, increasing interaction between citizens and civil society, and increasing collaboration between government and citizens and citizen participation in community development and local decision-making (see here).
Possible coordination
Participants concluded that it would be interesting and of added value to keep in touch with one another and to approach the EU delegations in Kiev and Rabat in a joint manner. The CIB Working Group will work on a matrix which showcases who is doing what in which region(s) which will support the actions towards national governments and donor organizations. Last but not least, participants were informed about the Eastern partnership coordination meeting of PLATFORMA which will take place in the Ukraine on 5-6 September and the EU-Morocco forum organized by FAMSI later this year.
Other coordination needs?
Would you be interested to discuss possible synergies and trends in a country you are working in with your peers? Please let us know at uclg.cib@vng.nl. We plan to further develop the methodology and hold other coordination calls later this year.
