Organizations or initiative groups and local authorities in 10 communities worked together in order to facilitate and stimulate citizen participation in public decision-making processes and in elaborating local development strategies for their communities.
The project addressed a need identified at the level of Romanian communities – to improve public participation in local development decision-making processes and initiatives. The activities in the project addressed, on the one hand, the necessity to elaborate a local development strategy for each community (as a basic condition for accessing structural funds), and on the other hand – the lack of real partnerships between local public authorities and various institutions and organizations at local level, to ensure citizen involvement in community life and their participation in local development decisions and initiatives.
The intent of this project was to create a real and efficient dialogue framework between the public administration and local communities, to be transferred further to other organizations active in community development or to public authorities.

10 communities from Arges, Calarasi, Dolj, Gorj and Ialomita counties. The participant communities were selected from a pool of rural and urban communities where PACT Foundation had previously worked in order to build capacity of community-based organization/initiative groups to contribute to the development of their own community.

To stimulate participation and partnership at local level, in order to create a democratic environment and a strategic development process.

   •    Out of the 10 participant communities, 9 were able to complete both the public consultations in the first part of the project, and the whole participatory strategic planning process;
•    The training seminar on “Stimulating citizen participation in decision-making processes” lasted for 2 days and a half, and involved 36 participants (17 representatives of local public authorities and 19 representatives of community-based organizations)
-    The seminar succeeded in creating a proper environment for the facilitation of an open dialogue between the community-based organizations and local authorities; it offered participants the opportunity to reflect upon their own experience in  involving community members in local development initiatives or decision-making processes; the seminar then centered on methods and techniques that the local institutions and community-based organizations could use to strengthen their relationship with community members, making it more efficient, in order to increase citizen participation in their community’s development;
-    Each of the 10 participant local teams (formed by representatives of local authorities and representatives of community organizations) received the textbook “Public decision in the XXIst century. Practical guide to stimulate citizen participation in public decision making”, edited by CeRe (www.ce-re.ro). The textbook describes 27 innovative methods to involve citizens in public decision-making;
•    During the next 3 months, the local teams put into practice at least one method of public participation, in each of the 10 participant communities. Issues that the communities had been facing were submitted to public consultations so as to reach a decision. The scene was set for the participatory strategic planning process;
-    10 consultancy visits (one in each of the participant communities) were undertaken by PACT Foundation and Cere, in order to encourage and sustain local teams to plan, organize and carry out activities in their own communities, so as to stimulate citizen participation in local decision-making processes;
-    The issues submitted to public consultations in the 10 communities were the following: building a community park for children and grown-ups (using local funding from the commune-hall, as well as community fundraising performed by the local organization); creating a drinkable water supply network; raising the efficiency of the community guard; rehabilitation or building of access roads to the arable land hardly accessible for the locals (the need for stone to be covered by the local authorities; the community members to work together for the rehabilitation of the roads); building either a sports field or a sports hall for the local teams and commune inhabitants; making communal pastures’ management more efficient;   rehabilitation of a road that tress passed the village domains; prevention and treatment of local landslides; creating an info center; school drop out - poor school performance in a Roma community;
-    Following  these public participation processes, some of the local authorities involved in the project took the responsibility to help the community based organizations from then on, and to implement projects developed through this participatory exercise, with the aid of community members; community representatives that took part in this exercise were invited to participate in work sessions of the specialized committees of the local council in order to ensure the transparency of the process;
-    In 2 of the communities, the mayors themselves decided to ask the local counselors to order feasibility studies for future projects, on the basis of the reference terms elaborated, considering the results of the consultative processes; participants in the consultative processes were invited to take part in sessions of the local council, in order to draw the reference terms and adopt decisions;
-    To ensure the implementation of the results of participatory processes, local teams lobbied to the mayors and the special committees of the local councils, for the development of local council decision projects that would bring solutions to, or at least improve the issues submitted to public consultations;
•    The local authorities from the 10 communities strengthened their capacity to stimulate citizen participation in public decision-making and improved their information, consultation and citizen participation mechanisms;
•    The community-based organizations from the 10 communities built their capacity to actively participate in community decision-making and learned to apply modern methods of public participation;
•    The second training seminar on “Participatory strategic planning for local development” lasted for 3 days and a half and brought together 33 participants (14 representatives of local public authorities and 19 representatives of community-based organizations);
•    For 3 months and a half, the local teams from each of the participant community put into practice at least one innovative method of public participation to involve citizens in the elaboration of a document of strategic local development planning
-    30 consultancy visits (3 visits in each of the 10 communities) were undertaken by PACT and CeRe team, to encourage and support the 10 local teams to plan, organize and carry out activities in their own communities, in order to stimulate citizen participation in the strategic planning process;
-    At least 3 working meetings were organized in each of the 10 communities by the local teams. During these meetings, local teams and other community members together went through the stages of a strategic planning process: community description or community profile; vision statement; problem and resource identification (SWOT analysis – internal and external environment); laying out strategic development objectives; drawing up an operational plan with important community projects, involving identified resources. Citizens from the 10 communities participated actively in at least one workshop regarding the previously mentioned themes;
-    Local authorities and community-based organizations from the 10 communities learned how to lead a participatory strategic planning process;
•    Increased capacity of representatives of local authorities and community-based organizations in the 10 communities to develop participatory strategic planning; local authorities and citizens from the participant communities worked together to identify problems and resources, establish development objectives, draw up important community projects, identify necessary resources etc.
-    9 complete and 1 incomplete strategic local development plans were drawn up in a participatory manner; these plans centered around the major axes of strategic development drawn during the participatory strategic planning process in the 10 communities: infrastructure; tourism, agro-tourism and rural tourism; (micro) agriculture/traditional agriculture – ecological/natural agro-alimentary products, animal breeding and food industry; education and culture; traditions, traditional crafts and local patrimony; service provision, workplaces and specialized human resources; SMEs – business development, absorbing strategic investment; economy; health and environment; civic participation
•    3 issues of the Public Participation Bulletin were released, including:
-    (1) information on the selection process, objectives and activities of the project, as well as descriptions of each of the 10 communities involved;
-    (2) information on the first training seminar, on “Stimulating citizen participation in public decision making at local level”; information on the initial activities stimulating community members’ involvement in public decision making in their own locality, that preceded and paved the way for the participatory strategic planning process;
-    (3) information on the second training seminar on “Strategic local development planning” and participatory strategic planning processes carried out in the 10 participant communities;
-    10 copies of each issue of the Bulletin were distributed in each of the 10 communities (5 copies for the local public authorities and 5 for the community-based organization), to be further disseminated in neighboring communities, and 40 copies of each issue of the newsletter were distributed to participants in the final event of the project;
•    The final event at regional level gathered 38 participants (project beneficiaries, representatives of community-based organizations, NGOs, representatives of local public authorities, local representatives of the government and mass-media). Participants discussed over 5 main themes of the local development strategies elaborated during the project: traditional crafts and local patrimony; tourism, agro-tourism and rural tourism; culture, education and civic participation; infrastructure; agriculture, animal breeding and food industry.

EUROPEAN UNION

Project financed through Phare
During December 19th 2007 – October 18th 2008

Web page edited by Foundation PACT within the Participation. Strategy. Democracy project, financed through PHARE 2005 Program - Strengthening the Democracy in Romania, Component 2 – Democracy, Human Rights, Rule of Law, Independence of Justice and Fight against Corruption.

Date: October 2008

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