Cooperation for local development

It is very important for the local self-government to ensure the involvement of the population in the decision-making process from the representative and executive bodies, the publicity of the planning of daily and strategic activities, the implementation of these activities and their monitoring. Despite the fact that the mayor and members of the city council are delegated by the population to ensure local management during their term of office, both the "Local Self-Government Code", as well as the Association Agreement with Europe and the European Charter of the Self-Government obligated them to constantly involve the population in the decision-making process, and transparency of activities. What does a specific settlement need, the people of this village know the village the most. But in reality, the population is not involved in the decision-making process. His opinion is more or less taken into account only in relation to rural support programs and that too at the planning stage, not during implementation monitoring and reporting. Beneficiaries' participation in the planning process of infrastructural, social, youth and sports programs is very limited and is calculated only for those current needs, which the member of the Sakrebulo, the mayor's representative in the administrative unit and/or the mayo's departments considered to solve. There is also a very low degree of involvement of the population in the process of monitoring the works performed in the villages by the municipalities. It remains completely unknown to the locals exactly what the taxpayers' money was spent on, how much the work or service performed meets the quality standards.

The goal of the project "Cooperation for local development" is to promote the public monitoring process in the villages of Lanchkhuti and Chokhatauri municipalities and to promote the development of villages with the public participation, which in turn will improve the responsibility of local self-governments, will make their policies more oriented to the local population and will support increase the level of population involvement. To achieve this goal, the implementation of the following tasks is envisaged:

• In 3-3 villages of Lanchkhuti and Chokhatauri municipalities, namely in Etseri, Grigoleti and Oragve villages of Lanchkhuti, in Burnati, Dablatsikhe and Erketi villages of Chokhatauri villages, in order to start the public monitoring process, the members of the monitoring groups will selected.
• To increase the knowledge and skills of the leaders of the selected community groups in public monitoring, population survey methods, participation forms and participatory budgeting.
• Management of the monitoring process by community groups of the activities carried out by the municipality in selected settlements.
• Promotion of local development initiatives using citizen budgeting procedures and with the wide participation of the local population.
• Lobbying of the process by the residents and majorities of the selected settlements, so that the local government implements the recommendations developed as a result of the monitoring.

As a result of project implementation

• Cooperation between local non-governmental organizations, community groups and local government will be deepened.
• A cooperative and business environment will be established between the project team and the municipal council members elected by the respective villages.
• Active civil groups will be created in the settlements, which will have the competence, opportunity and motivation to monitor the local development process by the government in the long term.
• Members of the groups will learn how to create a petition and become familiar with methods of involving the public in participatory budgeting.
• The conclusions and recommendations prepared by the project team and provided to the municipality directly by the community groups significantly show the level of satisfaction of the population with the activities carried out by the municipality and at the same time reflect the needs of the villagers.
• The population will actually be given the opportunity to evaluate the effectiveness of the services offered to them. In the target villages, the quality of civil activity will be improved dramatically.
• The population will be involved in the process of selection, implementation and monitoring of community projects initiated on the spot, which will significantly increase their civic activity.
• Taking into account the needs of the population of the villages and the recommendations developed by the municipal councils and town halls of Lanchkhuti and Chokhatauri, the petition issues will significantly increase the willingness of the population to participate and raise the authority of public structures.

The project will last 9 months and will end in September 2023. The budget is 59850 GEL. The project is implemented with the support of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Government of Georgia.