USAID provides tool to help cities manage assets

TIRANA, Oct. 4 – A new manual to help cities manage local assets was presented last week roundtable with representatives from local government units, line ministries, and other interested stakeholders. The manual’s publication was made possible under USAID’s local governance program in Albania (LGPA), in cooperation with the Ministry of Interior and the Urban Research Institute (URI), according to a statement.
Over the past few years Albanian municipalities have gone through the process of inventorying and transferring the ownership rights of local assets that had previously been owned by the central government. Hundreds of factories, former military installations, offices, schools, streets, and public gardens, as well as urban and agriculture land are now the property of municipalities and could potentially provide much-needed revenues for cities through privatizations, leases and public private partnerships. Over the past three years, USAID’s local governance program has helped cities identify, inventory, and register hundreds of municipal assets that are now stored on an easy to operate database for municipal workers. USAID has also provided instruction on how to apply modern methods of management to increase revenues and enhance public services.
The publication follows the Municipal Asset Management Toolkit, published by USAID in 2009, that focused on relevant legislation and methods for inventorying and establishing a local asset registry. The new manual, Guidelines for Local Government Asset Management, will be a tool to improve how local governments manage those assets to improve public services for citizens.
USAID’s Local Governance Program in Albania (LGPA) works with ten municipalities throughout Albania to foster local economic growth, improve local governance, and strengthen civic and private sector engagement in local development. LGPA’s partner municipalities are Elbasan, Fier, Fushe-Kruje, Gramsh, Kor襬 Kukes, Lezhe, Librazhd, Pogradec and Shkoder.