Tahiri presents models of local governance at LGiU in London

The Executive Director of the Kosovo Local Government Institute (KLGI), Besnik Tahiri, who is in London on a working visit, on Wednesday presented models of local governance in South-East Europe to the team of the English Institute for Local Government, LGiU, in the United Kingdom.

His presentation focused in particular on Kosovo’s system and the processes the country is going through.

Analysing the process of decentralisation, he said that the local reform process risks failure if the Central Government’s support for Local Government continues to be lacking.

“To have strong and efficient local governance it is important to pay particular attention to strategic planning and economic development. Therefore, in the long term, only those municipalities that can carry out strategic planning and manage to generate local economic development will be able to offer a wide range of services and also to improve the performance of their administration, and vice versa”, Tahiri stressed.

He also spoke about decentralisation in the region, giving an overview of the reform process. He explained that the Balkans must move from political to functional decentralisation.

According to Tahiri, it is essential that throughout the region there be a functional review of decentralisation, carried out systematically, sector by sector and functional area by functional area.

Otherwise, as he said, the municipal and national government entities will continue to operate with weakened services, lowering the level of transparency and accountability of both levels of government.

Later he also met the chief executive of the LGiU institute, Jonathan Carr-West, to discuss in detail the potential for a partnership./InfoKomuna/