[Strategy for Local Economic Development...] FLGR Consult Ltd. successfully completed the work on the Planning of Local economic Development of Municipality of Letnitsa Project. The 6-months project was financed through the Active Services at the Labour Market Programme of the Ministry of Labour and Social Policy and the World Bank.
The project was carried out in partnership with the Municipality of Letnitsa - the administration, the Municipal Council - and interested local parties.
The main focus of the project was to generate Strategy for Local Economic Development of the Municipality of Letnitsa, based on a broad participatory process at local level.
The added value to the initiative gives the creation of a Marketing Kit of the municipality in Bulgarian and English, representing the economic and investment potential of Letnitsa, and the creation of a leaflet and a poster, representing the summary of the Strategy.
At an official meeting on the 21 June, 2007 the FLGR Consult team presented the Strategy for Local Economic Development of the Municipality of Letnitsa to the mayor of the Municipality Mr. Krassimir Dzhonev and to the Chairman of the Municipal Council Mr. Alexander Mihaylov.
Municipality of Letnitsa - Marketing Kit (English)
to the top >>
[UBBSLA and NASM RB...]
On the 5 July, 2007 in the town of Plovdiv, within the Fifth Annual Meeting of Local Governments in Bulgaria, "Successful municipal associations' projects" panel, the Foundation for Local Government Reform awarded the winners in the thematic innovative practices competition for local government professional and regional associations. The contest was announced in the framework of LOGIN Program and till the deadline for submitting practices - 8 June 2007 - 13 practices from 5 regional and professional associations were submitted.
On 15 June, 2007 FLGR announced online voting for the Choice of the Public Practice. In two weeks 330 visitors of the FLGR web page voted for a practice.
The website visitors and the members of the expert jury were led by the same 3 criteria in assessing the practices:
- timeliness;
- originality; and
- best proportion of costs - results.
2 practices with equal number of votes won the title Practice Choice of the Public within the on-line thematic competition: they were presented by the National Association of Secretaries of Municipalities in Republic of Bulgaria (NASM RB) and by the Union of the Bulgarian Black Sea Local Authorities (UBBSLA).
Winner in the thematic competition for Best Practice of regional/professional association of municipalities became Union of the Bulgarian Black Sea Local Authorities with the practice "EnerBuild: Public-Private Partnership For Integrated Improvement Of The Energy Characteristics Of The Municipal Buildings". Ms Mariana Kuncheva, Executive Director of UBBSLA, received the award.
FLGR thanks cordially all the colleagues that took part in the competition and congratulates to the winners!
At the Annual Meeting of Local Governments in Bulgaria FLGR also disseminated the volumes 38/2007 and 39/2007 of the Innovative Practices edition.
to the top >>
[Travelling Seminar...] In the period 9-14 July 2007 FLGR organised a travelling seminar to the Czech Republic. The topic of the seminar was "Industrial Zones Building and Management".
Mayors, deputy mayors, Municipal councils' chairpersons, private Bulgarian industrial zones managers, local economic development experts were part of the visiting team.
The participants in the seminar had an intensive schedule of visits and meetings at industrial parks of various types in the Czech Republic. They exchanged experience, investigated and discussed the investments attraction through building the industrial zones, completely "prepared" to meet the investors' interests.
The main goal of the study visit was to prepare the participants to meet the future challenges and to attract the investors into their hometowns.
to the top >>
[New IP Publication] In July 2007 FLGR team in the framework of the LOGIN Program prepared a new volume of the Innovative Practices edition.
The 40/2007 volume represents successful practices realized in EU countries at local and regional level:
- A project in Pezinok, a small town close to the Slovak capital, Bratislava, has trained 21 unemployed young people to manage EU-funded projects;
- Auvergne Region, France, brings together citizens and public services in remote, mountainous and rural areas thanks to PVCS, a unique ICT solution that offers a large range of services including a distributed video-conference facility that uses innovative techniques to simulate a genuine eye-to-eye communication. The Point Visio-Public won the first place in European 2007 Broadband Project awards (Brussels, 14 -15 May 2007);
- A new post of teacher assistant has been introduced in Slovakia's schools. The assistants help Roma children to succeed at school, and thus increase their chances of finding a job;
- Mano Guru ('My Guru'), a fashionable health restaurant in downtown Vilnius, Lithuania, offers young drug addicts a new start in life. For a six-month period, they can learn a professional skill while also continuing with therapy and/or education;
- In the northeastern corner of Greece, the first broad partnership in employment policy has set up a chain of seven 'stimulators' which give a tailored response to each enquiry;
- The inhabitants of over 800 Hungarian villages benefit from an innovative social service, the falugondnok or 'village caretaker'. This is typically a local person who is elected by the whole village and knows its inhabitants personally. Equipped with a minibus, the caretaker improves the quality of life immeasurably by offering many useful services, such as taking people to the doctor's, delivering meals on wheels, and organising sport and cultural events.
With the edition FLGR also presented the