Local Government Support, COVID-19 and Resilience Response Project

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The objective of the Local Government Support Project for Burkina Faso is to strengthen the central government's capacity for decentralization and the institutional capacities of municipalities ('communes') in six regions, and to improve accountability linkages between local policy makers and citizens in said municipalities. There are four components to the project. The first component is establishing the foundations of robust administrative and fiscal intergovernmental institutions. This component will support the central government agencies to further develop a transparent and rule-based intergovernmental fiscal framework and robust intergovernmental administrative systems. It will support the government in making a gradual shift from existing ex ante controls to ex post monitoring, as the capacity of communes increases to exercise their discretion. The second component is strengthening capacity of municipalities to manage local development. To address capacity constraints at the local government level, the project will provide support to local communes to address their core institutional development requirements for socio-economic development through institutional development grants. The third component is improving accountability linkages between local level policy makers and citizens. This component aims to empower local councils and populations by strengthening their capacity to participate in local decision making processes related to their socio-economic development and monitor local authority performance. At the same time, it aims to support local councilors in their oversight and representative function and to strengthen the capacity of local communes to communicate with local populations and account for their performance. The fourth component is project management and evaluation. This component will provide project management support to the Ministry of Territorial Administration, Decentralization and Security (MATDS) in project implementation and support regular project evaluations as well as procurement and safeguards reviews, and financial reporting and auditing.