KULOB, January 9, Asia-Plus  -- The Urban Institute (UI) Tajikistan began implementation of the USAID Local Governance and Citizen Participation Project (LGCP) in Kulob on January 8, Asia-Plus has learned at the UI field office in Kulob.  

A three-day seminar for representatives from local authorities of the city of Kulob and Temourmalik and Baljuvon districts was launched as part of the project.  The seminars are meetings of clustered branches and each of three-day seminars covers two or three districts.          

Urban Institute has been working on local government issues in Tajikistan for five years.  UI continues its work through the implementation of the USAID Local Governance and Citizen Participation Project (LGCP).  The LGCP project continues UIs successful work with local governments and expanded its scope to include work with all local governance stakeholders, including local government officials, local NGO leaders, community and citizen organizations, religious leaders, and the local media.  The work includes extensive capacity building training and technical assistance.    

UI continues to work on decentralization at the national level, including insuring that local government and community stakeholders’ concerns are included in the national policy dialogue on local government reform.  This work includes technical support to a Presidential Working Group for Local Government Reform.  Urban Institute provided technical assistance to the Central Government to develop the Local Government Reform Strategy that is included within the National Public Administration Reform Strategy.