Public participation in municipal budget planning
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The OSCE Mission in Kosovo has launched a month long public information campaign aimed at helping municipalities to increase public participation in the 2012 municipal budget planning. The campaign will include TV and radio spots and will run in Albanian, Serbian and Turkish languages.
In addition to the campaign, an award scheme will also be launched to assess municipal efforts to include the public in the budget planning process and recognize the five best performing municipalities.
The OSCE Mission’s field teams deployed to municipalities throughout Kosovo have observed that public participation in local decision making processes is limited. The campaign will thus help to invite the public to the public budget hearings and will encourage them to participate in the budget priorities setting.
Municipal assemblies in Kosovo have an obligation to reach out to the public and hold public budget hearings during the month of September and to define budget priorities through a consultative process. As an incentive for municipalities to do so, in parallel to the campaign, the Mission will also launch an award scheme and will assess municipal efforts to include the public in the 2012 municipal budget preparation. Officials from the five best performing municipalities will be invited to a study trip to Germany and will be given an opportunity to learn about the best European practices and take them back to their respective municipalities.
The campaign and the award scheme are part of a Mission’s long-term effort to help develop local capacities and increasing municipal transparency, accountability and public participation in decision making.