The report on administrative capacity assessment of local government was presented

The study was conducted by the experts of IDIS “Viitorul”, Institute for Urban Development (IDU) and Avensa Consulting Company from Romania, being contracted by the Joint Integrated Local Development Programme in the context of the Decentralization Strategy development process.

The study includes data on 68 administrative-territorial units, 10 towns and 58 communes and villages, in which the economic situation and the factors that determine it, the infrastructure condition, the organizational capacity of local governments, the financial management, the capacity to strategically plan and attract investments were analyzed.

According to Veaceslav Bulat, Director of IDU and one of the study authors, the small number of enterprises and the underdeveloped economy structure explain the limited financial capacities of the local government, the inability to rehabilitate the infrastructure and boost the local development process.

“In rural areas, per 1000 inhabitants there exist about 5-6 enterprises, of which only 1-2 of them are industrial. This fact is reflected over the local budget revenues that is 1215 lei per capita compared to 1847 lei of national average”, Veaceslav Bulat said within the presentation of the study.

The expert of Avensa, Daniel Barbu, who analyzed the capacity of the local government to strategically plan and attract investments, said that not all administrative-territorial units have strategic development plans. In the communities that have development plans, these are rarely updated, and are not used as working tools, but only for archiving.

A major problem is the lack of specialized staff. Only 74 persons in all 68 assessed administrative-territorial units have knowledge of strategic planning and investment attraction.

Alexandru Ursul, JILDP manager, said that the assessed communities generally have weak management capacities, and the Decentralization Strategy shall contribute to capacity building of local government.

Several participants of the debate said that, although with large delays, the institutional framework to promote the decentralization reform was anyway created, and the Decentralization Strategy is developed within a broad participatory process.