the central government,

2. the rayon administrations (this is considered the second level of local public administration, or LPA2), and

3. the administrative-territorial units on the village and municipal level (this is considered the first level of local public administration, or LPA1).

Through decentralization the local governments (LPA1) in Moldova are formally and politically responsible for the provision of local public services, such as water supply

and sanitation, street illumination and waste management, whereas competencies of LPA2 are related to public targets at the rayonal level, such as road construction and maintenance, higher-level education and public transportation (Government of the Republic of Moldova, 2006a: art. 4).

Deficits of Decentralization

However, as decentralization has advanced mainly in legislation,⁵ the actual effects on the local level are still quite moderate. Thus, local administrations have had diffi-culties fulfilling their executive role in providing decentralized service systems. Ac-cording to Administrative and Fiscal Decentralization in Moldova: Current Situation and Ways of Making Decentralization Work (Beschieru et al., 2008) and the National Decentralization Strategy (Government of the Republic of Moldova, 2012), the main reasons for difficulties are:

 Lack of real progress in fiscal decentralization. Competencies are formally delegated without financial resources, thus keeping centralized control over fi-nancial transfers and capital investments.

 Incomplete and contradictory laws. In legislation and in practice, delegated, deconcentrated and devolved responsibilities are not always clearly differenti-ated among the different administrative levels.

 Excessive administrative-territorial fragmentation. The enormous frag-mentation into 898 communities in 32 rayons leads to insufficient incomes at the LPA1 level. The lack of funds complicates the provision of local public ser-vices and results in rural LPAs having a more representative role than a func-tional one.

Regionalization

The recently adopted National Decentralization Strategy and the not yet adopted Law on Public Financing support a variety of measures to implement decentralization and to strengthen local autonomy. Applying these measures should contribute to a better provision of local public services.

After the change of government in 2009, the current Ministry of Regional Develop-ment and Construction was founded. It was responsible for the creation of regional development agencies (RDA) in three development regions in the north, south and center of the country. These agencies have no government function. Their role is to contribute to regional development through strategic planning (see chapter 4.2), to

5 Among others: Law on Administrative Decentralization (2006), Law on Local Self-government (2006) and Law on Public Finance (2003).

mobilize resources and to create extensive infrastructure projects by using econo-mies of scales (Beschieru et al., 2008).

Figure 2.2: Levels of government in the RoM and challenges in decentralization (own development, source of map: Andrein, 2009)

2.5 Inter-municipal Cooperation in the Republic of Modova

According to article 10 of the European Charter of Local Self-governance, signed by RoM in 1996, “local authorities shall be entitled, in exercising their powers, to co-operate and, within the frame work of the law, to form consortia with other local au-thorities in order to carry out tasks of common interest.” Objective five of the National Decentralization Strategy proposes IMC as a means for reducing fragmentation and for improving LPAs’ capacities to provide LPS in an effective way.

Inter-municipal cooperation in Moldova can take place on the local, rayonal (inter-rayonal cooperation) and regional level (inter-regional cooperation) (Government of the Republic of Moldova, 2006a: art. 5,1; Government of the Republic of Moldova, 2006b: art. 14k, art. 29y, art. 43t, and art. 53d). The need for intra-regional coopera-tion is underlined by the regional development strategies. It is the regional

develop-ment agencies’ and councils’ task to promote intra-regional and inter-regional coop-eration (Government of the Republic of Moldova, 2006c: art. 7(6)g).

So far, not many initiatives for IMC have been launched in Moldova. A first step to-ward IMC was taken by last year’s SLE assignment. The team used the approach of clustering and regionalization on the LPA level in order to design a more efficient wa-ter supply and sanitation service in the rayons Cahul and Riscani (SLE, 2011: 9; 90).

During the first national conference on IMC in June 2012, government officials, minis-tries, regional and local authorities as well as donors underlined the need for IMC as a tool for further decentralization and regional development. At the conference it was furthermore stated that IMC should be integrated as a cross-cutting issue within the socioeconomic development strategies (GIZ-MLPS, personal communication).

2.6 Challenges for Decentralization and Governance of Local Public Services in the Republic of Moldova

This chapter has shown that the decentralization process in the RoM just started and is still in progress and the provision of local public services is currently limited. Devo-lution of the task of providing local public services from the central government to the LPAs has partly taken place without transferring the fiscal dimension. LPAs in charge of providing the population with LPS are under-equipped technically, financially and in terms of staff. The National Decentralization Strategy of Moldova (Government of the Republic of Moldova, 2012) states that the following issues need to be tackled in order to improve the current local public service situation:

 The regulatory framework about decentralization has to be completed and re-fined in order to permit sufficient autonomy for LPAs, including financially. Min-istries should focus on their policy planning function, monitoring and providing up-to-date sectoral analysis. A clear share of roles and responsibilities for all respective actors will create a more transparent system.

 Reducing the fragmentation of the administrative-territorial structure is im-portant to carry out decentralized tasks more efficiently. The IMC model is one possibility to improve public services by a joint provision of LPS.

Furthermore, training and capacity development are required to ensure the adequate use of transferred power and finances. Here, the international development coopera-tion community can contribute its experience.

3 Theoretical and Practical Aspects of Solid Waste