charlene cleo eiben: OBAMAS NEXT regime change

Community and Municipal Governance Initiative (CAMI) in the Kyrgyz Republic

Solicitation Number: SOL-176-15-000006

Agency: Agency for International Development
Office: Overseas Missions
Location: Kazakhstan USAID-Almaty

Print
Link

Copy or Bookmark this Page

Copy the url below for a direct link to this page.

Bookmark this page by right-clicking here and choosing "Bookmark This Link..."

Solicitation Number:

Notice Type:

Synopsis:

Added: Feb 17, 2015 3:49 am

USAID/Kyrgyz Republic seeks to strengthen the legitimacy, effectiveness, and accountability of Local Self Governments (LSGs) in the Kyrgyz Republic. Assistance will focus on identifying the most significant legitimacy-effectiveness gaps facing LSG bodies, and improving their ability to execute the devolved functions enumerated by the Kyrgyz Republic Law on Local Self Government. This purpose will be accomplished by starting with the community's perceived needs, supporting LSGs to address those expectations within the available resources, and by continuing to provide assistance to further improve each LSG's competency and capacity through mechanisms that can and will function independent of future USAID funding.
The successful offeror will:
• With local stakeholders, collaboratively develop a local governance performance assessment methodology that captures key LSG effectiveness and legitimacy measures with respect to devolved functions, and identifies priority LSGs where assistance can feasibly demonstrate timely, effective, and sustained results;
• Develop flexible and adaptive Local Self Government assistance products and services; and,
• Ensure that the mechanism for delivering these products and services can provide continuing assistance to LSGs, independent of future USAID funding.

These activities will achieve the following results:
• Improved LSG effectiveness, as defined by improved competency, capacity and solutions to perform devolved functions and services;
• Increased LSG legitimacy, as defined by improved community engagement, responsiveness, and accountability with respect to devolved functions and services; and,
• Sustainable mechanism(s) for providing continued flexible, responsive assistance to the needs of LSGs

Throughout this document, the terms Government of the Kyrgyz Republic (правительство) and GoKR denote the unitary state - president, prime minister, parliamentarians, ministers, ministries, oblasts, and raions; the terms Local Self Government and LSG denote the Ayil Okmotus (AOs) and cities that are outside the unitary state. The population of the AOs range from 3,000 to 30,000 with a wide range of capacity, competency, economic vitality, and economic resources; the ten largest cities have populations from 30,000 to 800,000.

BACKGROUND

Country Context
The Kyrgyz Republic is a mountainous country with a population of roughly 5.5 million located in the heart of Central Asia. This small, landlocked, former Soviet state features a nascent democracy, a vibrant and increasingly influential civil society, and robust cooperation with the U.S. on a number of issues. The past ten years have been marked by successive political revolutions and occasional bursts of ethnic violence. Following the ouster of the authoritarian president in April 2010, a new constitution established the Kyrgyz Republic as a parliamentary democracy. Since then, it is successfully passing through its transition phase to become a consolidated democracy that can stand as a positive model among its less progressive neighbors. The Kyrgyz Republic's considerable physical, educational, medical, and social service infrastructure is the legacy of Soviet subsidy and investment, but over two decades after the collapse of the Soviet Union, these systems are crumbling and suffering from overuse, neglect, and low human capital.

USAID's assistance to the Kyrgyz Republic builds on the Government's commitment to further reform and relatively strong recent economic growth in order to develop a democratic, well-governed, and prosperous Kyrgyz Republic. This is based on the hypothesis that if government institutions' relationship with the citizenry is characterized by increasing accountability and inclusiveness, then its main ‘deliverables' - service delivery and policy - will improve across all socio-economic development sectors, thus increasing the legitimacy and stability of this nascent democracy.

This theory of change reflects the significant democratic gains that the country has made in the past few years, as well as the remarkable vibrancy of its civil society through periods of renewed authoritarianism. The parliamentary democracy established by the 2010 constitution has developed strong foundations, and has proved resilient through repeated collapse (and re-formation) of the governing coalition. However, the Kyrgyz's Republic's democratic future is by no means assured. It continues to suffer from the paradoxical ailment of being simultaneously over-governed and inefficiently governed, inheriting an oversized four-layer government based on the old Soviet model of unitary, top-down hierarchical control by officials who have mostly been appointed from above.

But the fact remains that the Soviet legacy has been a strong countervailing force to decentralization throughout the past twenty years, with centralized ministries largely dominating the decision-making in many critical areas of service delivery (education, health, energy, police, documents and civil registration, etc.), regardless of who gets to be the "mayor" and how s/he gets selected. Despite twenty years of tinkering, there is a gap between expectations and authority at the local level.

In 2012, the Kyrgyz Republic was ranked 125 of 187 countries with a score of 0.622 on the UN Human Development Index. Many services of critical importance to the population (police, schools, health care, civic documents) are technically beyond the jurisdiction of now democratically-elected local officials and are managed by appointed and largely unaccountable representatives of central ministries and agencies. Local elections have made municipal and rural officials answerable to their population, regardless of whether they have the means to solve problems. The Soviet legacy has been a strong countervailing force to decentralization throughout the past twenty years, with centralized ministries largely dominating the decision-making in many critical areas of service delivery, regardless of who is elected or appointed locally.

Decentralization
The advancement of reforms that result in sustainable, effective governance by improving accountability and inclusivity is a fundamental USAID decentralization principle. On paper, the Kyrgyz Republic has pushed decentralization further than any other Central Asian country, with political power, representation and fiscal authorities devolved down to local government units. Unfortunately, decentralization in the Kyrgyz Republic remains only half-finished, which undermines long-term attempts to improve governance in the country. The Kyrgyz Republic lacks a consensus vision of what this division of labor should be and how to manage the contraction of the state. The current decentralization program fails to clearly delineate how diverse, weak LSGs can and should implement the significantly devolved service provision model enumerated by the Kyrgyz Republic Law on Local Self Government.

The 2010 Kyrgyz Republic Law on Local Self Government (amended 2012, 2014) enumerates 23 devolved functions that are outside the Government of the Kyrgyz Republic:
1. Ensuring the economic development of the respective territory
2. Managing municipal property
3. Forming, confirming and implementation of the local budget
4. Providing drinking water to the population
5. Ensuring the work of communal sewage systems and sewage treatment facilities
6. Ensuring the functioning of municipal roads
7. Organizing electrical lighting of communal places
8. Maintaining cemeteries and funeral services
9. Landscaping and public green spaces
10. Maintaining parks, sport and leisure places
11. Organization of collection, removal and recycling of waste
12. Ensuring the functioning of municipal transport and regulation of public transport work within the respective territory
13. Protection of cultural and historic heritage (sites of significance)
14. Ensuring and organizing the work of local libraries
15. Establishing the rules of land use and enforcement of the rules and regulations of city planning and architecture
16. Deciding on the placing of advertisements in accordance with law
17. Assistance in maintaining public order
18. Creating conditions for developing public arts and culture
19. Creating conditions for leisure activities
20. Organizing activities with children and youth
21. Ensuring conditions for developing physical culture and sport
22. Assistance in prevention and mitigating impact of emergency situations
23. Exercise authority in the sphere of subsoil use, within the jurisdiction of local government

The 23 devolved functions enumerated in the Law touch on almost all governance activities in a community. Most functions require specialized technical skills; many require significant capital resources. Unfortunately, legislators failed to fully harmonize the draft law with existing legislation, or to clean other laws sector laws of other responsibilities previously delegated to local government bodies. This has led to a confusing legal basis for those attempting to implement the law in the executive branch. The current decentralization program furthermore fails to clearly delineate how local government units are to transition from their current service provision model to the one mandated by legislation. Given that there are no clear, funded, statutorily-consistent GoKR devolution mechanisms in place the challenge is to identify a LSG's most significant legitimacy-effectiveness gaps and then support it in working with its constituents to address those gaps within the community's resources.

In practice since 2010 there has also been a clear divide between larger cities that have been able to take some advantage of these provisions and of the political weakness of the central government and smaller cities, towns and rural Ayil Okmotus (AOs) that have not been able to carry out their basic "local" functions, much less take on the more difficult delegated "State" functions. Osh Mayor Melis Myrzakmatov effectively bargained for a very high level of autonomy from the Provisional Government in 2010 in exchange for his refusal to support the fleeing President Bakiyev and his agents. For local leaders in much of the rest of the country, however, the story is largely one of neglect at best and predation at worst.

Focus groups data since 2012 has shown that unlike general cynicism towards the role of the President and Parliament, there are higher expectations for sub-national government structures: respondents seem to universally expect a number of perhaps more superficial services from local government, including keeping general order in their towns and cities, making sure the street lights stay on, that beautification efforts are ongoing, among others. Respondents also seem to expect a certain level of democratic openness and accountability, often commenting that citizens requests be heard, even if they cannot always be addressed.

In a 2013 public opinion survey, conducted by the Centre of Study of Public Opinion, citizens were moderately satisfied with the efforts of their LSG. Fifty-seven percent of rural residents were satisfied with their AO's efforts, and only 3% had no opinion; while urban residents were less satisfied at 47%, and less knowledgeable of their city's efforts (16% indicating no opinion).

Good Governance
Governance is the overall process of governing, which includes the statutory government authority, the community, and a wide-range of local, regional, and national stakeholders. USAID/Kyrgyz Republic is focused on good governance, defined as the interaction between transparent, competent state bodies on one hand and active, informed civil society on the other. By strengthening Local Self Governments, citizens will begin to perceive governance in the Kyrgyz Republic as being more legitimate, effective, and accountable.

LINK TO THE U.S. STRATEGIC FRAMEWORK FOR FOREIGN ASSISTANCE
The activities outlined in this document will directly support the U.S. Strategic Framework for Foreign Assistance, Objective #2: Governing Justly and Democratically, Program Area # 2.2 Good Governance, Program Element # 2.2.3 Local Governance and Decentralization.

USAID/Kyrgyz Republic's Country Development Cooperation Strategy (CDCS) for the U.S. fiscal years 2015-2019 builds on the GoKR's commitment to further reform in democracy and the social sectors as well as relatively strong recent economic growth in order to achieve the CDCS goal of assisting in the development of a democratic, well-governed, and prosperous Kyrgyz Republic. This goal is based on the premise that if government institutions' relationship with the citizenry is characterized by increasing accountability and inclusiveness, then its main ‘deliverables' - service delivery and policy - will improve across all socio-economic development sectors, thus increasing the legitimacy and stability of the Kyrgyz Republic's nascent democracy.

The CDCS can be found at: http://www.usaid.gov/documents/1861/country-development-cooperation-strategy

This activity also supports USAID/Kyrgyz Republic Development Objective 1: Inclusive and accountable democracy; IR 1.2: Increased mutual accountability between citizens and government; Development Objective 2: Improved service delivery and policies for all citizens; IR 2.1: Increased capacity of key state bodies to govern well.

In 2013, the Kyrgyz Republic convened a High Level Development Conference to reflect upon the Kyrgyz Republic's transition from post-crisis recovery to sustained development. The Conference found that the Kyrgyz Republic has a unique chance to provide Local Self Governments with the capabilities for strengthening the governance principles of self-sufficiency and improving service delivery efficiency to meet local community needs. It also identified the following areas to support:
• Promoting the concept of local self-government
• Optimizing the interaction of state authorities and LSG bodies to improve services and enhance the quality of decisions
• Development of municipal services
• Capacity-building of administrative staff and governing institutions
• Development of fiscal decentralization

USAID AND OTHER DONOR ACTIVITIES

The United States, through the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), has a history of cooperation with the Government of Kyrgyz Republic in development of local governance through decentralization and improving housing and communal services.

The Local Government Initiative Program in Kyrgyz Republic, implemented by the Urban Institute from 2004 through 2006, provided decentralization policy support and LSG capacity strengthening on the provision of primary services to satisfy community requirements.

In 2006, USAID continued the Urban Institute's support of LSGs with a three-year Decentralization and Local Government Program that endeavored to:
• Broaden democracy and instilled democratic principles throughout the country
• Built capacity of LSGs to effectively manage their resources while transparently providing municipal services
• Increase responsiveness of LSGs to needs and priorities of their citizens
• Improve capacity of LSGs to manage local economic development and created awareness of the role of local initiatives in the country's overall economic development

USAID's Local Transparency and Cooperation Initiative (LTCI) has the dual objectives of improving cooperation and accountability between citizens and LSGs in public services delivery, and increasing transparency and understanding in the extractive industry. The program works with citizens and community leaders to:
• Prioritize LSG expenditures to reflect community needs
• Mobilize community resources in cooperation with LSGs
• Improve citizen access to higher quality public services
• Establish greater trust and appreciation between citizens and their government

The United Kingdom's Department for International Development (DFID) implements programs to drive better delivery of social services and encourage good governance through greater accountability; improving the quality and transparency of scarce public resources; promoting stability and development through improved and more transparent public financial management; and anti-corruption activities.

World Bank supports a peer-to-peer learning initiative to provide opportunities for LSG representatives to discuss problems related to local budgeting and share experiences, problems and tested solutions, as well as for local CSOs to learn to be more effective in demanding transparency and accountability of budget process. Training, practical handbook and open budget hearings, giving citizens and local officials the knowledge and tools to formulate and implement more effective and transparent local budgets. The project also promoted demand for additional budget transparency by raising awareness and strengthening journalists' ability to analyze, present, and disseminate accurate information about fiscal and budgetary problems at the local and national levels.

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) conducted a demonstration project to operationalize good governance in the context of social justice initiatives by improving access to public service delivery and addressing the rights of the most vulnerable elements of three thematic constituency groups in the Kyrgyz Republic: children, women, and youth.

Swiss Agency for Development Cooperation (SDC) works to increase the equitable access for citizens to services through transparent and efficient use of public resources by supporting decentralization as a means to improve governance, make political processes more democratic and participative, strengthen local power, and make the state less prone to conflict. SDC has undertaken a Public Service Improvement project to improve the efficiency and quality of the services provided by municipalities to increase quality of life of local communities.

Aga Khan Foundation (AKF) works through the Mountain Societies Development Support Programme. Its primary activities include establishing and building the capacity of community organizations to initiate and manage village development projects. It also introduces improved technology to increase agricultural and livestock productivity; supports income generating activities and small enterprise development; and provides training and support to village organizations.

OSCE Center in Bishkek has five strategic priority areas: strengthening of relations between communities; fostering good governance and combating corruption; fighting against terrorism; promoting human rights protection and the rule of law; and furthering gender equality. Through its Osh field office and an office in Batken an array of conflict-prevention activities are being implemented, in addition to monitoring the inter-ethnic relations in the southern provinces of the country.

ACTIVITY DESCRIPTION

USAID/Kyrgyz Republic seeks to strengthen the legitimacy, effectiveness, and accountability of Local Self Governments (LSGs) in the Kyrgyz Republic. Assistance will focus on identifying the most significant legitimacy-effectiveness gaps facing LSG bodies, and improving their ability to execute the devolved functions enumerated by the Kyrgyz Republic Law on Local Self Government. This purpose will be accomplished by starting with the community's perceived needs, supporting LSGs to address those expectations within the available resources, and by continuing to provide assistance to further improve each LSG's competency and capacity through mechanisms that can and will function independent of future USAID funding.

Performance Objectives and Measures
Rather than requiring an activity design based on specified methods of performance, USAID requires offerors to propose technical approaches that best achieve the following performance objectives as defined by each objective's performance measures:

Objective 1 Increasing Local Self Government effectiveness, as defined by improved competency, capacity and solutions to perform devolved functions and services, within a community's resource constraints by:

Measure 1.1 Increasing staff competency and capacity
Measure 1.2 Advancing implementable administrative protocols, processes, and procedures
Measure 1.2 Advancing financially sustainable, local solutions to better deliver a constituency's priority services
Measure 1.4 Advancing readily achievable GoKR reforms to improving LSG's effectiveness

Objective 2 Increasing Local Self Government legitimacy, as defined by improved community engagement, responsiveness, and accountability in the implementation of devolved functions and services, incrementally and sustainably by:

Measure 2.1 Strengthening all community stakeholders' engagement in LSG planning and execution
Measure 2.2 Reconciling community expectations with LSG resource constraints

Objective 3 Furthering and sustaining indigenous Kyrgyzstani Local Self Government support capabilities that are competent and able to provide on-going assistance to communities and their leadership by:

Measure 3.1 Collaborating and coordinating with multiple stakeholders such as GoKR LSG-oriented entities, emerging LSG consulting firms, LSGs and their communities, and international donors
Measure 3.2 Promoting new and existing products, services, and practices that strengthen indigenous Kyrgyzstani LSG technical expertise and assistance capability
Measure 3.3 Ensuring a post-activity mechanism for LSG assistance and support, not dependent on USAID funding that fosters and leverages indigenous capabilities to promulgate best practices, products, and services

Contractor Performance Indicators
The contractor's performance will be evaluated based on progress in accomplishing the activities specified in their annual work plans and activity monitoring and evaluation plan (AMEP), and achievement of the contract targets for each performance measure set in connection with the indicators provided in this section. USAID and the successful offeror will use objectively verifiable indicators with periodic data collection to measure performance and adjust approaches as necessary.

In addition to custom indicators proposed by the Implementer as part of the activity design, USAID requires that USG indicators and USAID custom indicators be collected as part of this activity:

• USG Standard Indicators
o Number of sub-national entities receiving USG assistance that improve their performance

• USAID Custom Activity Indicators
o Number of LSGs with improved effectiveness scores, based on LSG Performance Assessment Tool
o Number of LSGs with improved legitimacy scores, based on LSG Performance Assessment Tool
o Average % increase in LSG effectiveness scores, based on LSG Performance Assessment Tool
o Average % increase in LSG legitimacy scores, based on LSG Performance Assessment Tool
o Number of Kyrgyzstani LSG advisors and experts with improved capacity
o Number of new or improved LSG advisory services and products

USAID CROSS-CUTTING BEST PRACTICES

Local Systems: A Framework for Supporting Sustained Development (http://www.usaid.gov/policy/local-systems-framework) describes USAID's approach to transforming innovations and reforms into sustained development. The Framework defines how to advance aid effectiveness and serves as the basis for deeper collaboration with all partners to support sustainability though local systems.

The focus on local systems is rooted in the reality that achieving and sustaining any development outcome depends on the contributions of multiple and interconnected actors. Building the capacity of a single actor or strengthening a single relationship is insufficient. Rather, the focus must be on the system as a whole: the actors, their interrelationships, and the incentives that guide them. Realizing improved development outcomes emanates from increasing the performance of multiple actors and the effectiveness of their interactions. Sustaining development outcomes depends on the sustainability of the local system - specifically, its built-in durability and adaptability that allows actors and their interrelationships to respond to changing circumstances.

The framework's principles for engaging local systems are:
• Recognize there is always a system
• Engage local systems everywhere
• Capitalize on USAID convening authority
• Tap into local knowledge
• Map local systems
• Design holistically
• Ensure accountability
• Embed flexibility
• Embrace facilitation
• Monitor and evaluate for sustainability

The Local Systems Framework incorporates USAID's Learning Agenda on Local Organization Capacity Development (http://usaidlearninglab.org/library/capable-partners-learning-agenda-local-organization-capacity-development), an effort to assist in developing better partnerships with local organizations.

One of its key findings is that training fatigue is widespread. The standard-package capacity development approach is being questioned. Clients want custom-tailored approaches: real-time, problem-related approaches that engage mentors or involve peer-to-peer learning. The preference for these "horizontal" as opposed to "vertical" approaches is growing. The Learning Agenda suggests that development activities need to:
• See risk in terms of impact risk rather fiduciary risk
• Move to a less idealized and perfectionist view of capacity
• Shift to more inductive approaches to research and contextual analysis
• Recognize that partnership means changing staff roles to build longer term relationships
• Let go of an engineering mind set (tools, kits) in favor of one that embraces process, next steps, iteration

Gender Equality and Female Empowerment
Gender is a social construct that refers to relations between and among the sexes, based on their relative roles. USAID's Automated Directive System (ADS) states: "Gender issues are central to the achievement of strategic plans and Development Objectives (DO), and USAID strives to promote gender equality, in which both men and women have equal opportunity to benefit from and contribute to economic, social, cultural, and political development; enjoy socially valued resources and rewards; and realize their human rights". (ADS 201.3.9.3)

Further, USAID requires that gender integration be incorporated into new project designs. Specifically, gender integration entails the identification and subsequent treatment of gender differences and inequalities during program/project design, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation. As part of the design of any proposed activity, the contractor should assess and identify gender issues that affect the participation of men and women equally in the participation of this project. The contractor is expected to examine cultural perceptions, economic barriers, and other factors that affect women and men in terms of local governance.
In 2012, UNDP undertook a comprehensive case study on Gender Equality and Women's Empowerment in Public Administration in the Kyrgyz Republic (http://www.undp.org/content/dam/undp/library/Democratic%20Governance/Women-s%20Empowerment/KyrgyzstanFinal%20-%20HiRes.pdf ).The study found that women's movement in Kyrgyzstan, embodied in a network of NGOs, has achieved remarkable success for gender equality and continues to be a driving force. The women's movement started a nationwide advocacy campaign for gender quotas with the result that in 2007, despite resistance from most politicians, a 30 percent gender quota was introduced to the Election Code and Kyrgyzstan subsequently has 22 percent women MPs, as well as two female deputy speakers of the Parliament, four Heads of Parliamentary Committees and six Deputy Heads of committees, as well as one woman Governor of a Local Self Government.

The Kyrgyz Republic also has a relatively robust policy framework in supporting areas, such as a law on sexual harassment and good support for maternity, although there is scope to introduce reporting requirements.

Despite benefiting from higher education levels than men, young women are hampered in their career aspirations by lack of time due to domestic responsibilities, which are even growing under increasingly traditional tendencies and in the face of minimal and unstable social protection. The lack of support and gender stereotyping at home are replicated in the workplace, with even basic legal requirements such as breastfeeding rooms often not in place, and many women are afraid to exercise their maternity rights.