Completed: July 2005 - July 2006
The Project aimed to build central and local governance capacity and to improve accountability mechanisms through strengthening of local institutions and training of officials.
The first component of the project aimed at identifying both short and long-term interventions to develop and/or strengthen local governance capacity in Turkey. The second component was designed to provide training and capacity building activities for central and local government officials in the fields of intergovernmental public finance and local government reform.
Key feature of this activity was that it was demand-driven. The WBI received a request and signed a MoU with the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Republic of Turkey to collaborate with the General Directorate of the Local Authorities of the Ministry in designing a capacity building program on intergovernmental fiscal relations and implementing a program of action to support the Government's efforts to modernize the local government sector. The project is based on this MoU and implemented by TEPAV within the framework of partnership agreement signed with WBI.
The project included the following core activities:
- A training needs assessment was conducted and training workshops were organized or scheduled. Training programs were organized on the basis of needs assessment findings. Central and local government officials as well as practitioners, policy makers, and academicians participated in the training programs. Training courses were delivered by reputable international and national institutions, independent specialists as well as TEPAV experts.
- Training program on Intergovernmental Fiscal Relations: Training courses were supplemented with a working group session where transfer criteria defined in the draft law on the revenues of local administrations were modelled; different simulations were discussed and reported to the Prime Ministry.
- Training program on Performance monitoring of local administrations: Training program was based on a review study where expectations from central and local administrations were collected and problematic areas were diagnosed. Training content was tailored to the needs of participating stakeholders. Training sessions were supplemented with a workshop on developing policy alternatives. Whole exercise was reported and submitted to Prime Ministry and Ministry of Internal Affairs.
- Training program on Sectoral decentralization strategies: The program focused on the prospective services to be decentralized in the short term, namely social services, youth and sports services. It was conducted in a workshop setting where input was provided by specialists. Discussions were held with the participation of those drafting decentralization strategies and stakeholders.
- Training program on Improving a Public Organization through Self Assessment: First activity in Turkey on a widely used public management tool in Europe, the Common Assessment Framework. Strategy Development Directors of line ministries together with senior managers of selected local governments participated in the training sessions.
- Training program on Strategic Planning in Local Administrations: TEPAV has been assisting Ankara Special Provincial Administration in carrying out a participatory process to develop a vision at the provincial level and further develop its institutional strategic plan accordingly. The Strategic Planning for Local Administrations Training program was designed to share Ankara Provincial Administration's experience in developing a strategic plan (participatory processes) with selected local administrations in order to replicate the same process in other locations. A detailed manual based on the content of the training program was developed for the scale-up.
TEPAV's project activities exhibited some common features: 1) training programs were organized in partnership with Ministry of Interior and the Prime Ministry in order to increase ownership of the results 2) the issues were current or planned government policy actions that were related with broader public sector reform agenda, 3) the intention was not to dictate or impose government what to do but instead provide knowledge and simultaneously a platform for discussion with the participation of main stakeholders including the bureaucrats, academicians and NGO's. 4) The ultimate goal was to make the knowledge and discussion process durable by documenting, reporting and training relevant staff preferably in a workshop setting.