# Current activities within BACID III
Within BACID III program co-financed by the Austrian Development Agency, KDZ is currently supporting the Regional School of Public Administration (ReSPA) in strengthening the Regional Quality Centre and the Network of Associations of Local Authorities of South East Europe (NALAS) in Digitalisation of Local Governments.
- Training for Certified External CAF Feedback Experts
- Label “Effective CAF User” for the Civil Service Agency of the Federation of Bosnia Herzegovina
- CAF roll-outs in ministries of ReSPA member
- Western Balkan Digital Summit in Pristina: "Smart Cities and Digitalisation of Local Governments"
- Nalas Digitalisation Working Group
# Partnership Agreement of ReSPA and KDZ
ReSPA Director Maja Handjiska Trendafilova and KDZ Managing Director Thomas Prorok handed over the Partnership agreement for the BACID III during the The ReSPA Budget Committee Meeting which was held in Vienna.
During the ReSPA Budget Committee Meeting with the representatives from the Ministries of Finance or Public Administration from Albania, Bosnia Hercegovina, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia we shared our experiences about
- CAF and Quality Management
- Fiscal Equalisation in Austria
- Risk Management and internal Control
- Public Accounting Reform
- Municipal Financial Key Indicators
- Open Budget Platform
# Invitation to participate online: LoGov mid-term Conference
The program features sessions on each of the five major themes of the LoGov project:
- local responsibilities and public services,
- local financial arrangements,
- structure of local government,
- intergovernmental relations of local governments,
- people’s participation in local decision-making.
Online participation is open to everyone and people may, of course, also join for individual sessions.
Find the programme details here.
Register till 11th October here.
# Local Government Finance Development in Hungary
KDZ Managing Director Thomas Prorok participated as a speaker about Austrian, Croatian, Slovak and Hungarian experiences in local government finances and fiscal equalisation on the development of municipal finances in Hungary in September. He argued for
- legal protection of the vertical and horizontal fiscal equalization
- fair involvement of local government associations in the fiscal equalization negotiations
- clear and task oriented indicator for the distribution of funds
- more local tax autonomy
- transparent and open fiscal data and statstics
The workshop was the start up of the project “Local Government Public Finance Development and Municipal Capacity Building in Hungary” which has been initiated by the Hungarian National Association of Local Authorities (TÖOSZ) together with the Ministry of Interior and the Ministry of Finance and will be implemented by the Conucil of Europe´s Centre of Expertise for Good Governance and financed by the European Commission (DG REFORM).
# Local Autonomy on Europe
The new edition of the Self-rule Index for local authorities in the EU, Council of Europe and OECD countries, 1990-2020 provides a great overview on decentralisation and local autonomy in Europe based on a comprehensive methodology (Score 0-100). KDZ is working intensively with the "Local Autonomy Index" which has been co-edited by Andreas Ladner (Member of KDZ scientific board).
We visualised the results and show some weaknesses of local autonomy and decentralisiation in Europe:
- With an average score of 59,7 (out of 100) the autnomy is quite low.
- The differences between Western and Eastern Europe are still significant with Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovenia, Croatia and the Non-EU Southeast European countries beyond the average.
Some surprising results - e.g. the relatively high score in France or the low score in the Netherlands.
# 20 Bulgarian CAF experts for a study visit in Vienna
Michael Kallinger, Ministry for Arts, Culture, Civil Service and Sports and KDZ Managing Director Thomas Prorok organised a workshop for the Bulgarian CAF-colleagures.
The presentations and discussions covered
- CAF in the inistry for Arts, Culture, Civil Service and Sports
- CAF in the City of Vienna
- CAF in the Study Grant Authority
Thomas Prorok introduced KDZ as the CAF Competence Centre and stressed the value of the international cooperation that CAF facilitates: "Learning from experiences of other countries is always fruitful. This is one of the leading benefits of CAF - the European Common Assessment Framework for better quality and governance in public administration."
# LOGOV Secondments
Our international project "LOGOV - Local Government and the Changing Urban-Rural Interplay - LoGov" is bringing Rebecca Matsie, Senior Researcher of the South African Local Government Association (SALGA), to the KDZ for a month. The aim of her visit is to exchange knowledge and experience on municipal administrations. In particular, Rebecca Matsie will deal with citizen participation and citizen budgets.
Dalilah Pichler started her one month Secondment at the Council of Europe in Strasbourg, working together with the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities on comparative research of local government practices.
We are glad that KDZ is partner in the Horizon project “Logov Rise” and allows us to have Secondments and knowledge exchange with local government and public governance institutions worldwide. Looking forward to many new partners, insights and learnings.
Learn more about the EU funded LoGov project here:
https://www.logov-rise.eu/
