OREANDA-NEWS. July 31, 2013. Certificates for the purchase of special technical equipment over the amount of more than 4 million soms (more than USD 80’000) will be officially handed over in Bishkek to the representatives of the municipalities of Kok-Tash, Sumsar and Sakaldy in the Jalal-Abad oblast and of Ulakhol in the Issyk-Kul oblast.

Residents of these areas have determined that the garbage disposal is an important issue in their villages. As winners of a small grants program competition, the local self governments will purchase equipment worth more than 7 mln soms out of which more than 4 mln soms are a grant assistance and 3 mln soms are paid from the municipalities’ local budget.

The grant assistance has been provided within the framework of the project "Strengthening Voice and Accountability: Citizens’ participation and oversight of budget processes”, which is realized by the Development Policy Institute with the financial support of the Government of Switzerland.

"We help rural communities in Kyrgyzstan to improve quality of life, and we are convinced that constructive dialogue and participation of citizens in local self-governments are an important resource for the development of regions in Kyrgyzstan,” says the Programme Manager for Central Asia of the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, Mr. Thomas Walder. “Grants are not the goal of the project, but they are considered to be an additional stimulus for municipalities and a tool to convert obtained skills into practice. We believe that local self governments are able to operate effectively for the public interest".

"The problem of garbage disposal is very crucial in rural areas of Kyrgyzstan as such services didn’t exist since the Soviet times,” comments the project leader Bekbolot Bekiev. This will help local communities and the implementation by local self-governments is a guarantee that the equipment will be used for its intended purpose".

In 2012, the special technical equipment was allocated to three municipalities in Chui, Jalal-Abad and Issyk-Kul oblasts, where the problem with garbage disposal has been solved.

For more details please contact Nurgul Jamankulova, PR specialist of the Development Policy Institute,
tel.: (0555) 313-385, (0770) 771-711, e-mail: njamankulova@dpi.kg, web-site: www.vap.kg, www.dpi.kg

***
The project “Strengthening Voice and Accountability: Citizens’ participation and oversight of budget processes” is implemented in pilot municipalities of Issyk-Kul and Jalal-Abad oblasts of Kyrgyzstan. The project strengthens the right of citizens to have access to budget information and to express their views on how it should be spent. Also it enhances the resources that local self-governments can avail of in order to deliver quality public services.