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Innovative Practices Seminar

Innovative Practices Seminar

At the end of the pilot project of the Bulgarian Technical Twinning Program the Foundation for Local Government Reform, with support from the International City/County Management Association, organized an Innovative Practices Seminar. Its purpose was to promote the results of the first year of the Program. The event took place on June 25 - 26, 1998, in Varna. The seminar was attended by more than 45 participants, including representatives of the three Bulgarian and American cities twinned under the project; mayors and chairpersons of municipal councils from four new Bulgarian municipalities which will be included in the second phase of the project; mayors of pilot cities of the Local Government Initiative Program; representatives of regional associations of municipalities; representatives of the United States Agency for International Development - Sofia, of the Local Government Initiative Program, and of international organizations which support twinning. The issues under discussion were information on innovative projects and practices developed as a result of the partnerships; recommendations to future twinning projects; sustainability of the program, and its potential for continuous co-operation between the partners.

The goals of the seminar were:

to present information about the Technical Twinning Program and other international programs supporting the twinning process;

to show the tangible results and benefits of technical twinning between the municipalities;

to gather information about lessons learned;

to make recommendations to the four new cities;

to discuss the opportunities for multiplication of the Technical Twinning Program model in other European cities.

During the seminar, the cities twinned so far presented cases of innovative practices based on the results of their cooperation.

Stara Zagora and Durham, North Carolina, presented a downtown development project, focusing on the benefit of applying the principle of public-private partnership and public participation in municipal initiatives.

Rousse and Duluth, Minnesota, presented a case of sustainable community development, an idea welcomed by both municipalities, on the basis of which they work on a project for achieving long-term sustainable development of the Municipality of Rousse.

Haskovo and Abington, Pennsylvania, presented a case of an NGO coalition built up as a result of their co-operation. The coalition works upon developing a model of citizen participation and interaction with local government.

Representatives of the Association of European Cities and Bulgarian NGOs presented existing European programs. They also discussed the opportunities for support of the twinning process.

The American and Bulgarian twinned cities shared their experience. They stressed on the mutual benefits of their co-operation, and made the following recommendations:

new valuable knowledge acquired both by the American and the Bulgarian participants;

mutual provision of resources, information, knowledge and experience;

transfer of technical skills to the Bulgarian counterparts;

provision of opportunities for applying various alternative approaches to solving problems, and management practices;

development of economic relations between the cities;

building up trust and friendly relations between elected officials, professionals, business people, and families;

expanding the views of people, better intercultural understanding, mutual satisfaction.

Program contribution:

to use public-private partnerships as a valuable principle in local self-government;

to apply new approaches to developing strategic plans and programs, by using community resources and by including a wide circle of participants (municipal administration, municipal councilors, representatives of the academic and non-governmental sectors, young people and citizens);

to get citizens involved and to provide opportunities for citizen participation in the development of public projects;

to provide support for and to get strong non-governmental structures involved in the twinning process, as a potential for sustainable development of the program;

to enhance the role of municipal management teams in providing assistance to the twinning process.

Recommendations to the future stages of the program:

Extension of the program:

The twinned partners from the pilot project are planning to:

continue the regular exchange of information via Internet;
allocate funding in their budgets for maintaining their contacts;
develop new activities;
perform an exchange of people twice a year;
provide family stays.

The recommendations made during the seminar will be useful and will increase the efficiency of the program in its second stage. The Innovative Practices Seminar proved to be successful. The materials gathered will be distributed to the 250 Bulgarian municipalities, regional associations and NGOs.

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