OSCE supports Kyrgyzstan’s efforts to develop local economy by enhancing potential of Local Development Funds
Since June 2021, more than 160 participants from across Jalal-Abad and Osh provinces in Kyrgyzstan have taken part in a series of OSCE-supported training sessions focused on developing and implementing projects to promote local economic development.
The OSCE Programme Office in Bishkek organizes the capacity building sessions throughout 2021 in close co-operation with Abad, a NGO, within the framework of the project, Improving the Effectiveness of Public Administration. The series aims to increase the capacities of local development funds (LDFs), self-government bodies (LSGBs) and entrepreneurs toward strengthening the local economy.
One of the recent training sessions held on 10 August 2021 involved 17 participants from the supervisory board and executive structures of the LDF of the Toguz-Toro district in Jalal-Abad province.
The session focused on helping the participants enhance their knowledge and skills to more effectively evaluate and select project proposals aimed at supporting the development of the local economy. In particular, they learned more about the role of LSGBs in creating more favourable conditions for local economic development, criteria for the selection of relevant economic projects, mechanisms of municipal-private partnership and taxation.
Participants also explored ways to address and counteract shortcomings in how LDFs use their budgets. According to the Ministry of Economy and Finance of the Kyrgyz Republic, 43 local LDFs across Kyrgyzstan received about USD $22 million between 2015 and 2018 but only spent USD $15 million, which is 66.7% of the available budgets.
A 2019 field study by a local NGO on these discrepancies concluded that such shortcomings might result from the limited capacity of LSGBs and local private entrepreneurs to develop sustainable and relevant project proposals, as well as from a lack of capacity among LDFs for selecting and evaluating project proposals. The OSCE training sessions are designed to help find ways to address these shortcomings.