The Local Democracy Agency (LDA) in Kosovo, organised by ALDA, the Association of Local Democracy Agencies, under the auspices of the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of the Council of Europe, in cooperation with its international and local partners, will be operative by the end of 2011.

More participation of citizens, more countries involved, more debate on the issues and European values.
This is the idea of the European Commission for the reform of twinning in the next program, 2014-2020, confirming the budget of 30 million a year to fund the twinning projects with the intention of making more effective their performance.

Yerevan hosted a conference entitled “Eastern Partnership: National & European Dynamics” that has been organised by the International Center for Human Development (Armenia) in cooperation with the EU delegation to Armenia.

Reacting to the economic and governance crisis that is sweeping Europe with negative effects, due to the narrowing of public spending, directly for the citizens, who are losing the necessary social services that local and regional authorities are struggling to provide.

ALDA has organised as partner leader of the project STAND.UP, an International Conference on “Mobility and volunteering in town twinning – Exchange of methodologies between Local Authorities and Civil Society” which will take place in Venice on 15 and 16 November

Local Democracy Agency Sisak is celebrating 15 years of its successful work on promoting human rights, development of local democracy and human rights.

The City of Sisak was awarded with the “12 star label” for its efforts in ELDW, the European local democracy week, by the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of the Council of Europe.

“The reforms that the Croatian government will finalise in the next twenty months to prepare the country to the European appointment in July 2013 should be shared with civil society, and European institutions will continue to monitor the situation, which is essential for the completion of the process act”.

The celebration for the 15th anniversary of the LDA of Sisak (HR) coincides, for a not accidental case, with the eve of Croatian access in the big European family, and the awarding of the “12 stars label” to the Municipality for its efforts in ELDW

The visit in Ijevan (Armenia) of two executives of the Municipality of Thiene (Italy) launched yesterday (27th of October) a twinning project between the two cities, in cooperation with ALDA.

The new Local Democracy Agency Armenia was opened on 28th of October in Gyumri. It is the second LDA in the South Caucasus area and the thirteenth LDA opened by the Association of Local Democracy Agencies (ALDA) with the support of the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of the Council of Europe.

“The new LDA Armenia, like the others established in the past years, will be a bridge builder! It will build bridges between the various stakeholders of the community, as local authorities, civil society, and the local business and educational sectors, in order to promote democracy and respect for human and minority right”.

The Association of Local Democracy Agencies participated in the European Congress of Rural Municipalities, which took place in Warsaw on 19-20 October 2011.

On the 23rd of October it was officially launched in Budapest, Hungary, the Grundtvig project “Network for Community Development with Marginalised Social Groups” in which ALDA is partner.

On 11 October 2011, as part of the activities in its committee «Wider Europe», AFCCRE took the initiative to organise a meeting between the French and the Croatian representatives of local authorities in both countries.

Mr Dragan Marinkovic, associate of LDA Niš and Head of Environmental Protection Department of the City of Kragujevac, will take part in the international conference on climate change, “Green capital” in Tbilisi, Georgia, on 20th of October.

Supporting participatory urban development and start a solid relationship of decentralised cooperation with an Armenian town.