Projects

WB-Austria Urban Partnership Program

Online Trainings - City-to City Dialogue - Fight against Corruption

The World Bank Institute (WBI) is partnering with the Austrian Government to strengthen capacity for urban development in South-East Europe (SEE). The objective of this program is to assist and support cities and local governments in South-East Europe in a process of modernization and reform, in order to promote local development for inclusive and sustainable growth, and enhanced urban governance.  While global in scope, it targets South-East European countries, including Serbia. Based on demand, the program offers a series of city-to-city dialogues on municipal finance, urban planning and land management, and municipal service delivery, as well as leadership training and urban governance/anti-corruption capacity building activities.

Worldwide local governments face an increasing demand from the growing urban population to provide basic infrastructure and services, promote more inclusive growth, adapt to climate change, and mitigate risks from disasters. Although development pathways differ because of regional and local variations, one consistent pattern has emerged: economic prosperity most often occurs in cities.  However, cities in South-East Europe do not yet harvest their full potential to contribute to economic prosperity and deliver better quality of life for their citizens. 

Some of the urban challenges in SEE countries include:

  • the long learning curve of local government who acquired new and greater responsibilities stemming from the administrative, political and fiscal decentralization processes launched in the late 1990s/early 2000s;
  • developing sustainable approaches to meet EU pre-accession requirements and the EU directives, including environmental directives, as well as challenges to effectively absorb EU pre-accession and structural funding;
  • putting in place sustainable technologies; and
  • limited leadership capacity.

To this end, the World Bank-Austria Urban Partnership Program (UPP), led by WBI, brings together cities from the Western Balkans for a series of capacity building activities, to offer them practical tools for decision making and good urban governance, and strengthen their leadership capacities.

The program offers the following capacity building activities:

  • WB e-Institute Urban Curriculum of e-Learning Courses

WBI Urban e-learning courses for local government officials, municipal practitioners and decision makers are offered to SEE constituents under the e-Institute.  This curriculum is organized under four key thematic lines: urban planning and land management, municipal finances and governance, urban service delivery, and safe and resilient cities.  Content of most WBI Urban team's courses is based on the wealth of experience, knowledge and lessons inside and outside the World Bank. 

  • City-to-City Dialogues (C2C) on Municipal Finance, Urban Planning and Land Management, and Municipal Service Delivery

These workshops provide the opportunity to the cities to engage in more details  on solving particular issues. Overarching goal is opening a dialogues between local practitioners and peer exchange, followed by city actions between the workshops (i.e. self-assessment/diagnostic processes). Several Serbian cities have already participated in these workshops, covering topics such as: municipal service delivery, local revenues management, modernization of urban planning legal framework etc.

  • Urban Governance Capacity Building "Cities without Corruption - Cities with Future"

This anti-corruption approach focuses on the organization's vulnerability to corruption and goes beyond addressing corruption by enhancing local governments' integrity, transparency and accountability, the principles of sustainable urban development. Cities from the region can voluntarily apply to be a part of the training, to assess the level of their transparency and accountability, by using self-assessing method developed in cities worldwide (La Paz, Bolivia).

Standing Conference of Towns and Municipalities has been recognized as one of key partners in implementation of the Program. SCTM will provide different services to the WBI promoting program's goals and outcomes, recruiting the participants from Serbia to join the e-courses and workshops, hosting different kind of workshops etc.

The Urban Partnership Program has been launched in 2011 and will last until end of 2013. More details about the program can be found at the website: http://www.seecities.eu/

Contact person in SCTM is Klara Danilovic, Secretary to the Committee for Urban Planning and Housing klara.danilovic@skgo.org