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News. October, 2009

The Fund for Sustainable Development Puts Out a Collection of Best Practices of the USAID Funded Community Development Support Program (CDSP)

Deputy M. Banshchikov, member of the State Duma Committee for Local Development, greets the participants in the Ninth Municipal Reform Support Forum

In the course of 2006-2009, under this Program 103 projects were fulfilled in 38 municipalities in Russia (with a total population of nearly one million) located in 14 regions across the country, from Smolensk Oblast to Primorsky Krai. The Program was funded by the United States Agency for International Development on cost-sharing principles.

The local communities have received positive help from the projects in such areas as improving the environment, utilizing energy-efficiency techniques, increasing the efficiency of local budgets, promoting rational nature use, motivating civic initiatives, creating partnership alliances, making life better for local residents and enhancing  public health.

The results of the Program were acknowledged on a federal level and have also met a positive response among local and regional administrations, businesses, public organizations and citizens. To better disseminate the outcomes of the Program, the Fund for Sustainable Development developed a publication “Community Development Support Programs in Russian: Best Practices” that describes the experience of the most successful projects. Due to space limitations, this collection does not include all projects, however, full project information, contacts of participating organizations and a body of useful technical information is included in a CD-ROM that is supplemented to the printed publication.

In October 2009, the best practices collection was presented to the participants in the Ninth Municipal Reform Support Forum (sponsored by the National State and Municipal Governance Center) that was devoted to analyzing the impact of the economic crisis on community development and developing anti-crisis strategies for municipal governance. Over one hundred participants in the Forum from many regions of Russia, including representatives of federal, regional and local government and research, educational, consulting and public organizations, became acquainted with the publication and received a copy of it. The collection attracted much interest and received a positive evaluation from the expert community.

I. Yurgens, Chairman of the Board of the Institute of Modern Development, in his introductory speech to the best practices collection pointed out its opportuneness: “The appearance of this collection is a good start for an on-going communications and public information effort to broadly publicize innovative approaches to community development.”

RF Deputy Minister of Economic Development A. Klepach, noted that the collection will be of use to government agencies, local self-government, civil society and socially responsible businesses.

According to recent plans, the CDSP Best Practices Library will become the foundation of a system of providing information support to innovative regional and community development. This system will be developed by FSD in 2010 in partnership with the Russian State and Municipal Governance Research Center and with support from the RF Ministry of Economic Development.