ACTIVITY DATES: September 2005 - September 2010

IMPLEMENTING PARTNERS: Project Harmony, Inc., World Learning

REGION(S):

PROJECT DESCRIPTION:

Community Connections provides participants with professional training and create links between U.S. and Russian regions and communities.  The program offers participants exposure to the day-to-day functioning of a free market system and encourages public-private partnerships in Russia. Each Community Connections group is comprised of members from the private, governmental, nonprofit, and media sectors, forming a local team that can more effectively approach problem solving while working for greater sustainability.

KEY ACHIEVEMENTS:

Since its inception in 2005, Community Connections has offered short-term training courses in the U.S. to 471 Russian professionals.  The exchanges have covered 48 different thematic groups focusing on civil society development in 26 different regions in the Central Russia, North Caucasus, Far East, and Siberia.

Upon their return, program alumni have accomplished the following:

• Alumni have shared knowledge and skills acquired during the program with more than 8700 people. Alumni conduct training, seminars, presentations, conferences and exhibitions for their colleagues, partners and general publicin order to disseminate the US best practices.
• More than 40% of alumni published newspaper articles or gave interviews about their exchange.
• Alumni have received approximately $272,000 in funding from local administrations and international grant-making organizations.
• Alumni have implemented: HIV/AIDS prevention programs in the Samara and Orenburg Oblast; rehabilitation and mainstream programs for vulnerable children and youth in Tomsk, Novosibirsk, Altai and Khabarovsk regions; youth initiative projects in the republic of Karelia; and tolerance programs in Leningrad region.
• Alumni have launched seven NGOs to address civic issues, as well as organized an university TV studio, a new newspaper Moi Kavkaz, a new internet portal for the disabled and equestrian therapy center for handicapped children.

ACTIVITY DATES: September 2007 - September 2010

IMPLEMENTING PARTNERS: Foundation for Russian American Economic Cooperation (FRAEC)

REGION(S): Amurskaya oblast, Irkutskaya oblast, Kamchatskaya oblast, Khabarovskiy kray, Primorskiy kray, Sakhalinskaya oblast

PROJECT DESCRIPTION:

The U.S.-Russian Far East (RFE) Municipal Partnership Program builds on the momentum of local self-governance reform in Russia and uses international and domestic best practices in municipal governance.  The program seeks to transform local self-governance in the RFE into a viable component of open and participatory society by supporting new and existing city-to-city partnerships between motivated U.S. cities in Washington and Alaska and cities in the RFE.  The program develops and disseminates social and economic development practices, and works to institutionalize public administration skills among current and future government officials.

The Partnership Program aims to accomplish the following objectives:

• Increase policy development capacity among local and regional officials responsible for local governance, promoting decision-making that is consensus oriented, transparent, equitable, and based upon the rule of law;
• Bolster citizen participation in local self-governance and provide communities with skills and practices to manage their resources more effectively;
• Strengthen the capacity of local government in the RFE to effectively manage financial, human, and physical resources to improve their cities and the lives of their citizens; and
• Advance best practices in effective, equitable, and efficient delivery of public services to establish the practice of local public service management in the RFE regions.

KEY ACHIEVEMENTS:

FRAEC conducted an assessment of the previous Alaska-RFE CityLinks Program, implemented by International City/County Management Association (ICMA), and proposed three partnerships for continued support: Ussuriisk-Wasilla, Bolshoy Kamen-Kenai, and Nevelsk-Anchorage.  The follow-on support targets joint economic development projects.

Through an open competition, FRAEC then identified 11 RFE municipalities for participation in a new U.S.-RFE city-to-city partnerships designed to introduce modern social and economic development models and practices.  The selected municipalities include: Khabarovsky municipal raion, Sovetskaya Gavan, Elizovo, Slavyanka, Ussuriisk, Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, Artem, Voszhaevsky, Belogorsky, Paratunskoe, and Ussolsky.  FRAEC then selected cities in Washington State and Alaska to partner with these RFE municipalities on joint projects to improve their cities.

Together with two Russian partners - the Institute for Urban Economics in Moscow and the Far East Center for Social Innovation in Khabarovsk - FRAEC has trained hundreds of municipal employees, provided consultations to municipal leaders on citizen engagement and social and economic development.