Public organizations and lobbying the interests of local self-rule

On 31 July the round table was conducted in Uzhgorod. The participants of the round table summed up the results of the project “Election and political processes”, which was realized in the Transcarpathian region by the Association of young lawyers and students of law “Vested” with the support of “Development Associates, Inc.” and financial aid of the USAID.

60 representatives of 27 public organizations and organs of state power, deputies of district councils of the region took the active part in the project.

The manual for trainers “Lobbying: essence, main principles, application practices” was prepared in the framework of the project; the manual has been already applied at two seminars-trainings. The following questions were considered at the training:

· Lobbying. Mechanisms of lobbying.

· Methods.

· Lobbying the interests of local self-rule by public organizations.

Summing up the results of the project we may state that today the work of public organizations is not active in the districts situated far from the center of the Transcarpathian region. In general, the public organizations work effectively only in the oblast center and two other great towns of the region. This situation is caused by the fact that we missed the period of the activation of public activity that lasted during recent five years.

Communicating with the representatives of public organizations and designating the problems, with which these organizations face in the course of their work, we established that:

·§ there are no public organizations that cooperate with the organs of local self-rule and state power and make public the results of this cooperation in some districts, for example, Uzhgorod, Volovets and Vinogradov districts;

· representatives of public organizations of the region and some representatives of the organs of local self-rule are ignorant of the mechanisms of the conduction of gatherings of citizens, organization of public hearings, realization of local initiatives, etc.;

· the process of spreading the positive experience concerning the realization of the decisions on the local level is impeded because of the lack of knowledge about the norms regulating the work of the organs of local self-rule.

In order to improve the existing situation and to activate the work of public organizations in the remote districts of the Transcarpathian region we decided: to create the network of the public organizations, who took part in the project, with the purpose of cooperation and development of further steps for protecting the interests of local communities.

For this:

· To conduct the trainings and seminars for the representatives of public organizations, leaders of local communities on the questions of forming the active groups in the local communities, planning the activities of public organizations, attracting the finances from the local sources, conducting negotiations and looking for partners, as well as on other topics that should assist in the work of the heads of the organizations.

· To initiate and realize the projects jointly with other, more experienced, organizations, to distribute the printed matter.

· To conduct the trainings for the leaders of the organizations, the participants of the project, to create the organizations-partners of the resource centers for the development of local initiatives.

In the nearest future we plan to organize the network of partners and to develop the rules of the work.