On 8 February 2018, a workshop on the involvement of the civil society in local planning and inter-municipal cooperation took place. The workshop was organised under the ‘Modernization of Local Public Services in the Republic of Moldova’ project, implemented by the German Development Cooperation through GIZ. The event was attended by representatives of civil society organisations, GIZ/MLPS short experts in the field of civil society involvement and GIZ/MLPS project regional advisors.  

Petru Veverita, GIZ/MLPS National Senior Advisor: ‘We have already started several activities with civil society involvement and facilitation of local services projects implementation. German and Swedish Governments financially support this activity and today we will discuss about the support for local public authorities concerning local planning and inter-municipal cooperation in two sectors: Water Supply and Sanitation and Energy Efficiency in Public Buildings’.

Also, at the workshop a special attention was paid to social and gender aspects. Virginia Bilici, National Programme Officer from the Swedish Embassy in the Republic of Moldova: ‘Women and men should enjoy the same power to shape the society. This is a human right and a fundamental aspect of democracy and justice. It is impossible to reach a sustainable development by excluding half of the population from participation in regional and local development processes’.

At the workshop the toolkits for civil society involvement in local planning and inter-municipal cooperation were discussed and approved, as well as the Standard Operational Procedures (SOP) in the Water Supply, Sanitation (WSS) and Energy Efficiency (EE) in public buildings sectors.  

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The project ‘Modernization of Local Public Services in the Republic of Moldova’ (MLPS) is implemented by the German Development Cooperation through GIZ in partnership with the Ministry of Agriculture, Regional Development and Environment and is financially supported by the German Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), the European Union, the Romanian Government, the Swedish Government and the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC).