Summercourse 2009: “Empowering people through decentralisation”
From Monday 6 – Friday 10 July, a group of 14 participants from various countries followed the intensive summercourse on Decentralisation and Local Governance in The Hague.
The participants had working experience in a broad variety of countries and contexts, which led to highly animated and insightful discussions, as one of the participants noted: “the possibility to exchange experiences with my fellow participants was a strong point in the course”.
Topics that were discussed during the course included ‘Fiscal Decentralisation’, ‘Service Delivery’ and ‘Accountability’. Furthermore, lessons learnt on the design and implementation of decentralisation programmes were explored. At the heart of the discussions was how decentralisation can contribute to empowering people to monitor and influence the political and decision making process in their countries.
The summercourse ended with a study visit to The Hague Environmental Services and City Hall, where the participants could see the municipality in action and learnt about waste management policies and citizen education & participation.
In their evaluations the participants concluded:
- “It is an important course and an eye-opener, I can recommend it to anyone active in the field of development”
- “The course provided me with valuable new insights and a strong network of fellow practitioners”
- “The summercourse has helped me to better support my partner organisations in decentralising countries”
- “I acquired the knowledge and tools to assess and support the decentralisation process in my country”
The next summercourse on Decentralisation and Local Governance will be conducted in June / July 2010 (date yet to be confirmed). In November 2009 we will also organise a course on Decentralisation for participants from South Eastern Europe (click here for more information).
