Support to Local Development in the Republic of Belarus

About of project:

Description

The future of small towns and rural areas directly depends on the work of local authorities and active community participation.  Solving local development problems can lead to improved living standards across the country. The Project strategy is built on the area-based development approach (ABD), the essence of which is the identification of area-specific challenges through joint efforts of local authorities and communities.

The project aims at combining efforts and establishing partnerships between authorities and civil society to develop regions according to their specific requirements.

Intermediate Outcomes: The Project stakeholders are non-profit organizations, local authorities, businesses, active local leaders and community members.

To help local administrations deal with local development planning and exercise citizen participation, the project worked in 3 directions: assessment of local needs and challenges, building capacity of local actors to address them and funding local initiatives.

Initially, the project carried out a wide-scale sociological survey “My District” in all 118 districts of Belarus to identify challenges that local people face. The results of the survey were used as a basis for area-based development briefs for each district of Belarus to get the outlook of districts’ peculiarities, strengths, weaknesses and opportunities.

Capacity-building trainings in sustainable local development for local authorities, government organisations, NGOs and other interested citizens were organized all around the country to teach local communities assess local challenges and address them by mobilizing local potential, finding external resources and building cooperation between local actors.

The 1^st Contest of local initiatives was held to encourage active participation of local community members in sustainable development of their home districts and to identify future pilot districts.

Upon the results of the 1^st Contest, 30 pilot districts have been selected for exercising area-based development approach and holding the Main Contest of Local Initiatives. Local action groups were created in each of these districts to keep the efforts sustainable. Representatives of local administrations, NGOs, community leaders acquired new knowledge in local development strategic planning, managing initiatives and building effective partnerships.

Collectively, they developed ABD-passports for their districts to map out the points of growth and necessary actions to drive local development.

As a result, 2,223 representatives of local communities from 6 Belarusian regions developed their capacity in area-based development. 243 local initiatives from all around Belarus acquired financial support of the European Union in the sphere of improvement of social services, infrastructure, health, additional education, economic development, ecology, tourism and preserving cultural heritage. The local initiative support amounted to € 3,535,054. ABD-passports of 30 pilot districts were incorporated into governmental strategies of socio-economic development at regional level.

Points of Contact:

Liudmila Sakalouskaya, Project Manager

Tel: +375 17 328 35 54, Mob: + 375 44 579 30 05

liudmila.sakalouskaya@undp.org

Documents:

Information Pack “ABD Approach: Instrument of Sustainable Development at the Local Level in the Republic of Belarus”

Brochure: “ABD – how does it work?” (RUS)

ABD Fairy Tale: “Adventures of Paulinka, Antos and Ant Felix” (BEL)

Cases on implementation of ABD mechanisms in the Republic of Belarus (ENG)

Finalists of the Main Contest of Local Initiatives

Information guide (in Russian)

Video: Спасылка ў інтэрнэце: http://ld-inbelarus.by/