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• Second Annual Conference
  

• FLGR's Project Won Funding
  

• FLGR Starts Working On A New Partner Project
  

• FLGR Begins Active Cooperation With 2 Municipalities
  

• New Training Possibilities
  

• FLGR Welcomed at AmCham New Members Party
  

• Interesting Bulgarian Web Places
  

[Second Annual Conference] The Foundation for Local Government Reform is in the last steps of preparation of the Second Annual Conference "Municipalities and Business - Partners for Economic Development". The conference will be held on 18-19 February 2008 in Kempinski Hotel Zografski Sofia.

The Conference "Municipalities and Business - Partners for Economic Development" is an annual event that gives representatives of the public, private and non-governmental sectors to meet and discuss issues of common interest.

Topics this year are: Competitiveness of the Bulgarian municipalities in attracting investments; Bulgarian business and European Union; Latest tendencies in human resource development; Investment interest profile from EU, USA and Asia; Development of high-tech productions and innovations in Bulgaria; Sustainable development of protected areas.

The Conference will be opened by Mr. Boyko Borissov, Mayor of Sofia, H.E. Etienne de Poncins, Ambassador of France in Bulgaria, and Mr. Assen Gagauzov, Minister of Regional Development and Public Works.

The spokespersons are reputable practitioners from Germany, Ireland, Italy, China, USA, Czech Republic and Bulgaria.

Participants in the plenary sessions will be ministers; deputy ministers; regional governors; mayors; deputy mayors; chairmen of municipal council; managers of leading companies; representatives of universities, business organizations; international and national experts on economic development.

In the first Annual Conference in 2006 more than 150 participants from Bulgaria, USA, Hungary, Korea, France, United Kingdom, Netherlands and Kosovo attended the forum.

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[FLGR's Project Won Funding] The Foundation for Local Government Reform is one of the 47 NGOs (from 329 that applied for grant) whose project won funding in the framework of the first open call for proposals "Development of the structures of the civil society - effectiveness and professionalism in achieving partnership with the administration and the judicial system" under Operational Programme "Administrative Capacity".

The FLGR project "NGOs - Reliable Partners For Development" will be realised in the South Central Planning Region during a period of 18 months and its goal is to strengthen the capacity of the NGO sector, working in the sphere of local and regional development, to develop and implement policies in partnership with the public administration.

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[A New Partner Project] FLGR is a partner of a newly approved for funding project under the National Programme "Youth Information-Consultative Centres" 2007 - 2010 of the State Agency for Youth and Sports.

The leading partner of the project is the Centre for Informal Education - Sofia. The project will be realized in the period January - December 2008 and its main goal is to raise the motivation of young people (14 - 35 years) in Sofia for their personal development, to stimulate their active participation the community life and to create conditions and mechanisms for accessible and of high quality services for young people, adequate to their interests and needs.

FLGR's role will be to support information and communication channels of the initiatives that will be part of the project.

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[FLGR Begins Active Cooperation With 2 Municipalities] FLGR was approved to work on a continuation of the project New ideas and practical approaches in the field of anti-corruption (2007). The project's goal was to improve anti-corruption capacity and better accountability at the local government level, through providing effective and practical tools for self-assessment.

In the framework of the project the training manual Restore the Health of Your Organization - a Practical Guide to Curing and Preventing Corruption in Local Governments and Communities, by Fred Fisher, Ana Vasilache and Nicole Rata, was translated into Bulgarian and disseminated among municipalities, regional authorities and trainers, regional associations of Bulgarian municipalities, professional associations of municipal experts; NGOs, representatives of the media.

The new stage of work is entitled Dissemination and implementation of the curing and preventing corruption approach at Local Governments' level and in the framework of the 8-month project specific actions will be carried out in 2 Bulgarian municipalities - capacity building through trainings, risk areas diagnostics, media campaigns at local level, an Open Door Day etc.

The main focus will be the raising of the local initiative and realizing measures that are adequate to the local specifics by local active citizen in partnership with the public administration.

The project is funded by Partners Foundation for Local Development, Romania.

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[New Training Possibilities] The Centre for Training and Qualification within the Foundation for Local Government Reform announced the possibilities for training for the municipal administrations in 2008.

The Centre offers 10 training modules on topics such as 'Possibilities for Municipal Projects Funding through Operational Programmes", Local Initiative Groups under the LEADER approach elaboration', 'Good Governance' and others. The trainings may be commissioned by the municipalities and will be carried out on the spot.

It is envisaged that the trainings will be of great importance at the beginning of the new mandate of the local governments in Bulgaria. Several municipalities showed interest to the proposed possibility instantly after the first announcement of the trainings.

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[FLGR Welcomed at AmCham New Members Party] In November 2007 FLGR became member of the American Chamber of Commerce in Bulgaria. On January 23, 2008 AmCham organised the party "Meet the New Members" and more than 130 representatives of businesses attended the event.

The AmCham President Borislav Boyanov, and board members Andon Ichev and Chris Thompson welcomed everybody at the party and invited the six new members - FLGR being among them - of the chamber on the floor.

Ms. Ginka Kapitanova, Executive Director of Foundation for Local Government Reform, presented the organization as an independent resource centre that supports local democracy, being founded by group of mayors in 1995. Through grant management FLGR has provided funding worth USD 5 mill to projects and initiatives of 117 Bulgarian municipalities and 301 NGOs, encouraging local partnerships and improving municipal infrastructure and customer service.

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[Interesting Bulgarian Web Places]

Varna Archaeological Museum

Veliki Preslav Archaeological Museum

The Mosquito Problem and other stories
From the team behind the IDFA Silver Wolf award-winner "Georgi and the Butterflies"

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