Self-Government and Cooperation Contribute to Rural Settlement Development
Without building-up cooperation in local communities, without developed local self-government it is hard to expect any tangible changes for the better in rural settlements. However, local self-government is still considered to be the lowest level of the state power vertical, fully paternalized by it and dependent. In the meantime the underdevelopment of the self-government, especially on the settlement level, is caused by a number of local problems that have been seeking solution for many years. Therefore self-government development support in “forest villages” has become a relevant issue within the framework of the Forest Village project.
On the issue-related Forest Dialogue in October 2009 the participants came to the conclusion that a lot of deputies of rural settlement councils are not ready for deputative tasks and responsibilities, are poorly informed and lack possibilities to provide for good contact with each other and with their “neighbours” – deputies of nearby settlements.
Training seminars for deputies of the rural settlement councils have been initiated as a Forest Dialogue recommendation within the framework of the Forest Village project.
First such seminar was held on 27 January 2010 in Spasorub village, Priluzsky district, which is one of the nine villages participating in the Forest Village project. A series of such “training courses” was planned to be held on-site which turned out to be quite useful. Deputies from such villages as Spasorub, Tchernysh, Noshul and Verkholuzye, thus making 26 people in total, demonstrated huge interest to what experts from the Komi Republic Management and Public Service Academy were telling them. Besides, they got the opportunity to discuss the problems together and to exchange their experience which might not be wide yet though.
Fyargiya Surkina, the Dean of the Faculty of Management, noted that the deputies are regrettably not familiar even with the theoretic principles of self-government. That was the reason why she started training with the principles of local self-government. Besides, she distinguished the functions and responsibilities of the two local self-government levels “district – settlement” established in the Russian Federation legislation. The deputies also took interest in the possible forms of the interaction between these two levels. Sergey Tkachev, the Head of a department of the Faculty of Management, described the planning technique for municipal unit development in detail giving examples of planning in Priluzsky district.
Legally allowed forms of citizen participation in the life of a settlement were also regarded at the meeting. Local budgetary recharge became the most important and worrying topic. It was decided to leave the topic for a more detailed consideration at a separate meeting. Thus, the subject of the next meeting of Priluzsky district settlement council deputies is already defined.