CONSULATION ON LOCAL AUTHORITY HOSTED IN CIVIL HALL

Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia /MONTSAME/ A consultative meeting themed “Slackening centralization in Mongolia, providing localities with authority and ensuring civil participation” took place on Thursday in the Civil Hall. It has been co-organized by the President Office, the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SADC) and the Institute of Direct Democracy (IDD). In accordance with a request of the President Ts.Elbegdorj, the SADC is preparing a project “Supporting the governance and slackening centralization” together with the government and social organizations. It might begin in April of 2012, its third phase will focus on supporting a civil participation in localities. An advisor to the State Head on economics L.Dashdorj delivered a report titled “Increasing local authority with civil participation”, and a manager of the SADC Deepak Elmer--a report “Civil participation at local level to realize the project on slackening centralization”. The participants expressed opinions in conjunction with the reports and sounded their proposals on augmenting the local authority with the civil participation. “Thanks to altering of related laws, the local authority is expected to increase. In my view, it means giving the power to citizens, not to heads,” L.Dashdorj said. B.Khuder