How to Improve Development on Local Level [antikvár]

Foreword How to Improve Development at Local Level A Handbook with Best Practice Examples from South-East Europe In the context of the Stability Pact for South-East Europe and in cooperation with the national institutions, the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung (FES) initiated in spring 2001 a regional project "Local Self-Government and Decentralization in South-East Europe", focusing on the situation and the reforms of self-government and decentralization in the countries of the region. The project covers Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Hungary, Macedonia, Romania, Serbia and Montenegro, and Slovenia. In all these countries some reforms of local governments have been implemented or respective reform programmes are under discussion. The countries of the region started the transition process under similar conditions and consequently the intended reforms during the implementation process led to similar problems and common interests in this field. Therefore, the exchange of experiences and the dialogue on the different reform approaches must be seen as instrumental to that end, which may help to launch successful strategies and to avoid unnecessary failures. Against this background, the project's goal is to encourage the public debate with policy makers, researchers, and experts at the national and the local level. The final target group of the project, however, are practitioners at the local level who initiate or organize the implementation of reform programmes in the local context. In order to attain this objective, the project was developed in two venues: on the one hand, the regional workshops with experts from the concerned countries and the publication of the results for their utilization in national workshops at the local level, and the production of a handbook with best practice examples on the other. Since the start of this project in 2001, ten workshops with a regional expert group have taken place focusing on various topics of local self-government. The results of the workshops have been documented in publications and distributed to community administrations and associations, research institutions and individuals, who are in charge of community affairs. The publications in the English language are listed