Context
Most of the people living in rural areas of Moldova have insufficient access to public services. The country is subject to profound economic polarisation, with disparities existing between regions and a widening development gap between rural and urban areas. The local authorities are highly fragmented and under-financed, and are only able to provide a few important services. The small size of the local authority areas and their modest economic potential curtail the authorities’ administrative and institutional capacity to fulfil their functions. This is particularly significant for the poorest and most vulnerable people, who lack even basic public services.
The local authorities should play an important role in delivering water and sanitation, managing solid waste, ensuring energy efficiency and maintaining local and regional roads. However, their lack of capacities mean they are unable to do so. Under its European Integration Agenda, in order to improve the situation the government has introduced reform programmes for regional development as well as the sectors mentioned above. However, implementing these reforms will require considerable outside support.
Objective
Local public services have improved in selected villages and towns in the Republic of Moldova.
Approach
The GIZ project works together with the Ministry of Regional Development and Construction, and with selected local administrations and three regional development agencies which implement measures on the ground. The activities of the project fall into two main areas of activity.
• Local public services. The project partners are investing in innovative technologies and infrastructure. They are modernising services and building capacities for their proper management, and they are raising the level of local participation as well as cooperation between local authorities.
Pilot projects are run in the three sectors: water and sanitation, energy efficiency and solid waste management. To improve the efficiency of local service delivery, these projects take an approach based on five pillars: 1) adjustment of the local strategic planning and programming, 2) improvements in cooperation between local authorities 3) improvements to the service infrastructure, 4) capacity development for local authorities and service providers and 5) community mobilisation and civic engagement.
• Regional planning and programming. Here, the project is enhancing the coordination between institutions at local, regional and national levels by improving the coherence of investment planning. It is carrying out regional sector planning for water and sanitation, solid waste management and energy efficiency in public buildings, and developing a series of projects that are prioritised and ready for implementation.
The project partners record best practices and lessons learned, which are then shared and scaled up as far as possible within the Moldovan system. This information is also fed into a policy dialogue at the national level to drive further changes and enhance the sustainability of regional and local development processes, including those supported by the project.
GIZ is also involved in a number of co-financing arrangements. Since 2010, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Romania has been providing additional funding to the project to help improve the water supply and sewage systems in a number of places. Since 2011, the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida) has supported capacity development measures in the field of sector planning and programming for local councils and the regional development agencies. Ultimately this will improve local service delivery in four sectors. Finally, in November 2013, GIZ also took on implementation of an EU-funded regional development programme to improve still further the sector planning.
Important cross-cutting issues, such as gender mainstreaming, and social and environmental compatibility, are observed in all areas of the project’s work.
Results achieved so far
Local public services
• Across seven pilot areas, 35 investment measures have brought steady improvements to local public services in all three sectors.
• The three regional development agencies and the respective local authorities have so far assumed ownership of seven pilot projects.
• Cooperation in the area of solid waste management has improved between 35 local authorities following the creation of a regional service provider.
• In the seven pilot areas and in selected locations, local planning and programming has been aligned with the national and regional strategic framework for the three sectors.
• In all three sectors, the capacities of regional and local actors to carry out projects using the efficient service delivery model have improved.
Regional planning and programming
• For all three development regions (North, Centre and South) and in four sectors, altogether 11 regional sector programmes have been finalised in a collective effort, and with inputs from specialists of the regional development agencies.
• Nearly 80 potential projects have been identified in the areas of water supply and sanitation, energy efficiency, solid waste management and regional and local roads. These have been developed as a pipeline of measures for future introduction in the three development regions.
• Regional and local actors have gained enhanced capacities to carry out their regional sector planning and programming activities.