POLICY INFLUENCE AND KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT

Policy influence and knowledge management

• 5 centres of competencies (CC) in (i) SDPeMTBP,(ii) waste management, (iii) project cycle management, (iv) women in politics and (v) e-governance have been established with around 100 LGU experts. They are coached and trained by dldp to work effectively, producing relevant inputs for policy discussions, curricula development and capitalization of professional experiences;
• 4 capacity development curricula (SDPeMTBP), waste, project cycle management for
• InterLGU projects, e-governance) in the form of training modules and manuals, have been developed, recognized and are ready for further dissemination at country level; 
• dldp is highly recognized by its local LGU partners, the Ministry of Interior (MoI), other line Ministries and agencies and some results mainly on waste management (planning and cost and tariff calculation) were recognized at international level in the Western Balkans; 
• Some of the developed tools got formalized as national standards (e.g. the Financial Planning Tool to link strategic planning and medium term budgeting (MTBP). The tools/manuals developed by dldp have gained appreciation and interest from other decentralization projects/agencies (e.g. USAID/PLGP, CoE and others);
• The partnerships with LGUs, ministries and service providers were extended horizontally and vertically. dldp played a catalytic role in enhancing the cooperation among various governmental, non-governmental and other organizations by bringing decentralization on the policy agenda; 
• dldp has established networks of professional expertise in selected LGUs of the project area. These played a crucial role in developing training material, formalizing curricula and exchanging experience and best practices;
• Despite of difficulties in the cooperation with two associations (AAM/AAC) due to the political split, dldp managed to build up advocacy experiences with them on technical level (e.g. though round tables), enhance the cooperation between the two associations and the AAC membership at regional association was achieved (NALAS); 
• dldp managed to link sectorial support and issues with the decentralization reform. The combination of sectorial support under a specific decentralization perspective has proven to be successful, especially for waste and public financial management. 
• Different cost benefit analysis for selected dldp packages have been elaborated and proved that the investments into the elaboration and application of these packages were good to highly efficient. However, the nature of the programme to produce ‘new knowledge’ requires ‘investments into learning and piloting’ that cannot and should not be mixed with the costs for replication.