Dear readers and partners,
We are happy to introduce to you the first for this year edition of the biannual English Digest of the Foundation for Local Government Reform.
Within this issue of the digest we would like to present some of the articles and reviews we believe could be of interest to our readers and partners outside Bulgaria. The materials you will read in the Digest were selected among many articles published regularly in the monthly information newsletter of the Foundation The Local Self-Government Reform during the first half of 2006.
The FLGR s newsletter has a broad spectrum of readers: it reaches all 264 Bulgarian municipalities, the 28 regional authorities, all regional and professional associations of municipalities, various ministries, the National Assembly, state institutions, organisations and NGOs, working with local governments in Bulgaria. The newsletter serves as a forum for exchange of ideas, professional experience and innovations, gives timely information on actual topics to the local government and brings closer to the practitioners and experts working models for sustainable local development.
The articles in this issue cover topics such as successful introduction and functioning of e-Municipality, shares the results of a fruitful exchange of experience, provides details on a National information campaign titled The 2007 - 2013 Operational Programmes: Opportunities for the Bulgarian Municipalities . The articles also cover themes, which deal with good practices for transparent governance and overviews the efforts of the Foundation towards the establishment of the National Rural Development Network in Bulgaria.
The Biannual Digest could not publish all the materials, reviews and interviews, demonstrating the commitment and contribution of the FLGR in the process of assisting Bulgarian municipalities and enabling them to contribute to and benefit from forthcoming European Union membership to the maximum. Nevertheless, we hope that the ideas, efforts and achievements we share on the pages of the Digest will be inspiring for you and will encourage valuable replication of good practices and lessons learned.
FLGR is opened to future international partnerships with organisations, institutions and local governments and willing to contribute to the local government capacity building in all various aspects!
Ginka Kapitanova,
Executive Director, FLGR