USAID Government Accountability Initiative issued second Newsletter for Local Self-Governments which presents activities and results on improving accountability, transparency, and public participation, as well as good practices and models that can be used by each local government in Serbia.

Improving the structure and the content of local websites has been in the spotlight of the USAID GAI project from the very beginning is being pursued throughout the entire project.

Websites are one of the most relevant tools for ensuring transparency, availability of data, documents, and information of public importance. Websites provide the latest and timely information to the public on local administration work and events in the local community. The presence of cities and municipalities in an online environment offers great opportunities for communication with citizens and enables citizen participation in decision-making through online polls, consultations, virtual public debates, and fora for the exchange of ideas, opinions, and suggestions. Good websites provide online delivery of local services, which significantly contributes to the efficiency and quality of these services.

GAI is providing technical assistance to all counterparts LSGs to improve their websites through annual websites assessment with recommendations, local website model, and a rulebook for website updates and maintenance. On this page, you can find a presentation for websites improvement, as well as recommended website structure and the content for local governments’ websites.

USAID GAI provided technical support to cities of Sombor, Šabac, and Kragujevac to explore opportunities and to establish Single Administrative Point (SAP). SAP is a relatively new concept for improving the efficiency of public services, introduced by the Law on General Administrative Procedures in 2016. SAPs merge several administrative procedures into one and enable citizens and businesses to more quickly obtain information and services connected to specific ‘life event’ or business transactions. SAP merges all procedures in one action, through which a group of rights/duties that are connected to one event can be exercised. In each LSG, it may be possible to identify and establish many separate SAPs. In addition to saving time and improving efficiency, SAPs also reduce the opportunities of corruption by reducing the number of direct contacts between citizens and local public servants, and by limiting the discretionary power of public servants.

A detailed presentation about SAP and the opportunities it allows is available here (in Serbian).

Here you can find presentations for so far conducted training for public procurement for local governments (in Serbian).

List of so far available presentations (others will be available upon each training).

Topic 1. Preparation of public procurement

Topic 2. Public procurement procedures – types, deadlines, elements, conditions

Topic 3. Special techniques for public procurements

Topic 4. Exceptions from the Public Procurement Law, procurements below the threshold from article 27 of the Law.

Topic 5. Procurement for social and other special services (services for social care)

Topic 6. Criteria for qualitative selection of bidders and methods of proving, using the “capacity of another”.

Topic 7. Contract award criteria