Second Workshop: Evaluating and Advancing the Practice of Municipal and City Managers in Serbia
Standing Conference of Towns and Municipalities, December 10, 2007
Second Workshop related to the „Evaluating and Advancing the Practice of Municipal and City Managers in Serbia” Projectwas held on December 10, 2007 at the premises of SCTM.
SCTM general secretary, Djordje Stanicic, spoke in his introductory presentation about legislative activities regarding local self-government (Law on Local Self-government, Law on the City of Belgrade, Law on Territorial Organization and Law on Local Elections). The new Law on Local Self-government does not bring up the institute of municipal or city manager, but it will still be possible to keep that institute within local administration as assistant to Mayor.
Prof. Snezana Djordjevic put an emphasis on questions important to manager’s practice, on the issue of relevancy of the entrepreneurial model of local self-government, and especially on the capacities of local executives, including local managers. The role of ICMA was highlighted as well as its contribution to the work of managers around the world. Speaking of the new suggested local self-government regulations, Prof. Djordjevic also analyzed their weaknesses as well as the possibilities they offer to managers for stimulating local economic development. At the end of discussion, some important conclusions and directions for further work were given:
- Strengthen of the managerial capacity of local self-government
- Establish association of managers and assistants for local economic development
- Register at ICMA and use their services
- Further development of university programs for local economic development as well as SCTM and other NGO’s training programs
- Building public awareness on the importance of this profession
Prof. Mijat Damjanovic spoke about social context of the work of managers and stated that new legal solutions showed us how the lawmakers see the interest of the society and why the local economic growth is important. He concluded that unfortunately, political elite did not fulfill our expectations and that new legislation does not overcome insufficiencies perceived in both horizontal and vertical intermunicipal cooperation.
Prof. Miroslav Prokopijevic said that regarding LED there are external and internal constraints. Municipalities are treated as if they were unqualified and underequipped, as they always have to ask someone, formally other institutions and non-formally their political party. In a short review of municipal bonds, Prof. Prokopijevic put forward all of the existing types of municipal bonds, what the circumstances under which they could be issued are, and what conditions a municipality has to fulfill to be able to enter the obligation process.
Takođe je, u kratkom pregledu pitanja municipalnih obveznica, istakao koje sve vrste istih postoje, u kojim se situacijama izdaju i koji su uslovi koje opština mora da ispuni da bi se mogla zaduživati.
The participants were focused on the following:
- Political instability that does not allow foreign investors continuous communication with local government representatives can be prevailed over with stable managerial position
- Most of the politicians do not support horizontal intermunicipal cooperation
- It is, however, positive that the institute of local manager is not entirely eradicated, as there is the possibility for municipal assistants to work on LED related issues
- Non existant cooperation between representatives of the national and local level when making regulations relevant to LED, such as cooperation in dealing with questions of military assets and military industry – once again, everything is about personal connections, with no institutional approach to solving problems.
The Workshop concluded its work by adopting suggested conclusions and promising to find the way to prepare and publish the materials that were made for the workshop (research, policy papers etc.) in form of Manual for Municipal and City Managers.
This project is supported by Open Society Institute – LGI (Budapest)
Project period: January 2007 to January 2008.
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