Comunitatea Mea is an eight-year, USAID-funded program that is strengthening local government in Moldova to become more effective, transparent, and accountable to citizens.
The program is enhancing Moldovan local government’s capacity to provide quality municipal services, increase locally-owned revenues, and meaningfully engage citizens, while also collaborating with national level authorities to advance decentralization policy reforms.
In 2022, Comunitatea Mea received a 3-year, $15 million cost extension from USAID to continue its work in Moldova, bringing the total award value to $35.5 million.
165,000 citizens in 92 communities have been directly engaged to define local government priorities.
800 local civil servants have been trained on innovative tools for asset management and managerial control.
65 partner communities have completed community development projects, with another ten are in progress. Completed projects have resulted in improved public services for over 218,000 Moldovans, including improved street lighting, repaired roads, and renovated schools.
$12 million in revenue has been obtained by partner local public authorities as a result of improved asset management.
93% of partner local public authorities have reported improvement in key capacity areas, including organizational and strategic planning, service provision, financial management, citizen outreach and transparency, project management, and human resources management.
Technical assistance: Local public authorities receive support to identify community priorities and create budgets with the input of their citizens; inform citizens about community and budget updates; and change policies to create improved and sustainable services.
Maximize revenue potential of local public authorities: The program works with local public authorities to increase revenues by increasing locally-owned sources and improving resource management practices.
Infrastructure projects: The program supports small community development projects that meet community needs and improve public infrastructure and social services like roads, street lighting, and water systems. Groups of up to 10 communities collaborate on larger intermunicipal projects.
Citizen monitoring: Comunitatea Mea is working with Community Oversight Groups to ensure that citizens have a direct role in monitoring the work status of community development projects and in communicating with the rest of the community.
Promote youth participation in civic life: Comunitatea Mea will help Moldovan youth engage in the lives of their communities to ensure greater inclusion of youth voices in local government decision making.
National dialogue around reforms: Comunitatea Mea helps lead a national dialogue on decentralization, amalgamation, and local governance reform in partnership with local and central authorities and civil society organizations.
Digitalization of government processes: Comunitatea Mea supports Citizen Information and Service Centers to digitalize and streamline the process of requesting and receiving services from local governments, and also helps municipalities use new digital tools like Q-GIS to improve their transparency and service provision.
