Local Interventions
General Overview
The Local Interventions Component provides municipalities with the tools and resources they need to serve their citizens and build stronger communities. The component features three core packages of assistance for all participating municipalities: citizen service initiatives, participatory planning and community development, and improving municipal management of fiscal and human resources.
Municipal Action Plan
The 41 municipalities helped during the first phase of GAP have been targeted for a new type of assistance. Rather than simply repeat the type of aid given in the first phase of the project, or allow outside agencies to determine municipal needs, these municipalities are designing their own assistance projects, tailored to their own priorities. These projects, between two and five in number (or more, if locally funded), constitute a Municipal Action Plan, or a MAP. MAP projects can either be selected from a catalogue of eligible projects prepared by GAP or can be developed by the municipality itself provided they fit the general criteria for assistance.
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Citizen Service Initiatives
GAP’s citizen service initiatives aim to improve the delivery of services to citizens by establishing modern citizen service centers (CSC) that reengineer the way a municipality provides basic services to its citizens by
- responding to requests for information, permits, and applications;
- providing information on the municipality and its services;
- tracking the time taken to provide services.
GAP puts the CSCs high on the project’s priorities, considers them to have a key role in the implementation of GAP for several other technical support services provided by GAP. GAP’s activities will seek to facilitate the widespread adoption by local governments of practices and policies that improve the delivery of services to citizens, with the final goal of improving lives of citizens.
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In area of Planning and Permitting, by assisting in the municipal review of internal procedures and introducing new solutions such as zoning and modern software, GAP will help reduce the time and simplify procedures for urban, construction and land use permits contributing to the business-friendly environment in partner-municipalities.
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Participatory Planning, Community Development and Business Friendly Municipality
Participatory Planning and Community Development aims to improve transparency by engaging citizens and businesses in assessing communal needs, developing action plans, and taking steps for improved infrastructure and local economic development.
For this purpose, GAP assists the municipalities in establishment of joint municipality-citizen bodies - Community Development Planning Committee (CDPC) and equipping them with tools for participatory planning, project prioritizing and proposal writing, enabling them to sustain beyond the time frame of GAP.
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Business-Friendly Municipality
A general GAP objective is to support municipalities in developing themselves as a multi-functional municipality, integrated in both national and global economies, that provides a favorable environment for life and business activities. A business friendly environment will facilitate the development of small and medium size enterprises and also attract investments. This can be accomplished by mobilizing citizens, business community and local government officials to create and sustain an enabling environment for local economic development (LED).
As a number of GAP’s partner municipalities have already been through certain portions of LED efforts (supported by various international organizations), GAP’s approach is to individualize the provision of its LED technical assistance to specific municipal needs and interests. GAP’s technical assistance will support activities leading to viable Local Economic Development Strategies.
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Municipal Finance and Human Resource Management
The project’s fundamental objective in this area is to improve local governments’ existing fiscal management practices radically by improving how local governments plan and execute their budgets, meet new public sector accounting standards, raise and monitor the collection of local taxes, and measure the true cost of their services.
GAP is providing municipalities with an integrated accounting and budgeting software system resulting in the adoption of modern computerized systems for double entry accounting enabling realistic revenue-based budgeting, and improved and transparent financial reporting that are in line with the national treasury system’s unified chart of accounts. In municipalities where such systems already exist, GAP is providing upgrades to their current systems.
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Building on the capabilities of these software systems, GAP provides technical assistance to municipalities identify and implementing decisions which will reduce municipal operating costs and increase efficiency by applying tools of modern human resources management in municipal administration.
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Together with OSCE, GAP has produced the first single, easy-to-use BiH Budget Guide that systematically places best practices for the municipal budget management within the detailed regulations for municipal finance created by Federation BiH and the RS budget and accounting legislation. It serves as a guide for the Departments of Finance in all BiH municipalities.
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GAP is providing tools and know-how for introducing Capital Improvement Planning into partner-municipalities, improving their capacity in responding to the needs of citizens and strategic investments.
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Field Operations
GAP's technical and material assistance packages are implemented in the partner municipalities by GAP's regional and municipal coordinators who operate at the following four hub-offices:
GAP's hub-office Banja Luka
address: Prvog Krajiškog korpusa bb, Banja Luka
telephone: ++Â 387Â (0)51Â 304Â 224Â Â Â Â Â Â Â
fax: ++ 387 (0)51 304 235
Email: banjaluka@bihgap.ba
GAP's hub-office Mostar
address: Rudanova 7, Mostar
telephone: ++Â 387Â (0)36Â 558Â 410Â Â Â Â Â Â Â
fax: ++ 387 (0)36 558 411
Email: mostar@bihgap.ba
GAP's hub-office Sarajevo
address: Kalesijska 14, Sarajevo
telephone: ++Â 387Â (0)33Â 722Â 580Â Â Â Â Â Â Â
fax: ++ 387 (0)33 722 598
Email: sarajevo@bihgap.ba
GAP's hub-office Tuzla
address: Klosterska 13, Tuzla
telephone: ++Â 387Â (0)35Â 250 495Â Â Â Â Â Â Â
fax: ++ 387 (0)35 364 285
Email: tuzla@bihgap.ba
