Arab States LocalGovernance Forum to kick off [Archives:2003/691/Local News]

Mohammed Al-Qadhi
Organized by the UNDP's Regional Bureau of Arab States (RBAS), a 4-day Arab States Local Governance Forum will commence next Saturday in Sana'a with a participation of a number of Arab countries, UN agencies, GTZ and various other NGOs.
The objective of the forum is to contribute to strengthening democratic decentralization and participatory local governance in the Arab States by providing a platform for building advocacy networks throughout the region, and providing a space for networking, and documenting best practices and lessons for the region. The event is intended to be a policy-oriented event of concrete relevance and utility to the participants for they will have the chance to learn from the past experience of multiple stakeholders and define future directions and strategies for improving local governance in the region through local efforts and country programs as well as instituting a process of a continued dialogue on leveraging local governance structures, improving services, and democratizing policymaking and decision-making in the Arab region.
The RBAS believes that there have been good efforts by some Arab countries to strengthen local governance to improve public participation and the delivery of basic services. However, these efforts are faced by some challenges, mainly uneven commitment to reform. Many of the country-led local governance initiatives have been restricted to the administrative aspects of decentralization rather than encompassing its political or fiscal aspects as well. Decentralization has not always been accompanied by the necessary changes in power, financial resources, technical capacity or institutional know-how. These make the undermined local authorities unable to meet expectations and this erodes participation which is very important for good local governance.
The Lebanese Center for Policy Studies, a regional NGO, was contracted to be the substantive facilitator of the event.
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