What is the project about?

The Project is aimed at finding strategic solutions to the problems of local development in conjunction with regional processes and supporting grassroots initiatives.

The goal of regional development is defined as sustainable and dynamic development of all regions within the country in accordance with the profile of each region in the domestic division of labour, overcoming of inter-regional disparities in the levels of socio-economic development to ensure enhancement of human wellbeing levels irrespective of place of residence.

This Project is aimed at assisting government authorities and organizations with improvement of good governance standards through a participatory approach and strengthened dialogue between authorities, businesses, non-for-profit organizations and citizens.

Project partners include Regional Executive Committees, as well as district administrations and self-governance bodies in the territory of these regions.

The Project’s target groups include executive committees of regions and districts, cities and rural areas, local self-governance bodies, national and local public organizations and not-for-profit associations (NPOs), business associations, local residents and citizen action groups interested in designing and implementing  area-based development initiatives.

The project strategy is centered on Area-Based Development (ABD) methodology. ABD – is a geographical territory development methodology, based on analysis and identification of the given area peculiarities, addressing area- specific problems through inclusive, participatory, integrated and flexible approaches with particular support to grassroots initiative.    

6 kick-off roundtables have been conducted in Mahileu, Homel, Viciabsk, Brest, Minsk and Hrodna regions with overall participation of 487 people

24 training workshops on preparation of applications for the 1st Contest of Local Initiatives have been held in Viciabsk, Mahileu, Brest, Hrodna, Homel and Minsk regions with overall participation of 754 people

Project web-site http://www.ld-inbelarus.by has been developed and is updated continuously. The project has got a wide exposure in media and the project website acquired more than 10 000 visits for a year

Experienced trainers described ABD approaches to the audience and helped workshops’ participants learn in practice the basic iterations and steps of preparation and planning of local initiatives, co-financing options and formalization of applications

In May 2015 the Project organized 2 educational workshops on territorial and sustainable development management featuring international experts in the field - Svyatoslav Murunov and Ludwig Holzbeck.

From April to June 2015 the 15 regional coordinators of the project visited over 100 regions of the Republic of Belarus. During the visits, the regional coordinators have provided technical and advisory support in the preparation of applications for 1st Contest of Local Initiatives for more than 1,200 representatives of local communities

The 1st Contest of Local Initiatives held by the Project in 2015 proved to be the largest contest of initiatives in Belarus: 722 applications participated in the Contest, 594 of which were accepted for assessment. 87 initiatives will get financial aid from the Project up to USD 18,000. The full list of winners you can find here: http://ld-inbelarus.by/contest/победители/

The project held a large-scale sociological survey "My district" from November 16, 2015 to January 4, 2016. The goal of the survey was to identify and analyze the problems and priorities of Belarusian regions. The study was based on the opinion of local communities and population of Belarus, and covers all 118 districts of the country. The report will be available for wide public review in April 2016

In partnership with the main project stakeholders, Methodology Guidelines on Developing ABD Briefs was created and discussed with scientific community and general public in 2015

In December 2015 personnell of the Project has developed Regulations for the selection of 30 pilot districts, where the Main Contest of Local Initiatives will be held.