A New Symbiosis: Municipalities, Private Contractors and Non-Governmental Organisations for the Provision of Local Public Services"

This project considered the second stage of transforming local administration and public service management to reflect democratic forms of government. In Hungary in the second half of the 1990s more and more public functions delegated to local governments have been handed over to the private or civil sectors. This has led to a relative decrease of municipal functions but not of local governments' responsibilities, requiring them to change their orientation and approach to their work so as to be effective in their new roles of managing these processes rather than traditional bureaucratic administration. Horvath analysed the Anglo-Saxon, French and German models of self-government, identifying the differing aspects emphasised in increasing the private sector's role in the provision of public services, and the influence that this process has on the system of public administration. He then highlighted linkages between actors and local governments in Hungary, concluding that the next necessary step is to develop institutional mechanisms, financial incentives and managerial practices to utilise the full potential of this process. Equally important is the need for conscious avoidance of restrictive barriers and unintended consequences, and for local governments to confront the social conflicts that have emerged in parallel with privatisation. A further aspect considered was a widening of the role of functional governance at local level in the field of human services. A number of different special purpose bodies have been set up in Hungary, but the results of their work are unclear and Horvath feels that this institutionalisation of symbiosis is not the right path in Hungary today. He believes that the change from local government to local governance will require the formulation of specific public policy, the relevance of which can be proven by processes supported with actions.

New Prosperity for Rural Regions

The project deals with problems of marginal rural regions in the period of transformation in Slovenia and the Czech Republic. The course of the transformation, its impact, related border problems and environmental aspects were studied in seven model regions of the two countries, using geographical, cartographic, sociological, historical and remote-sensing methods. The opinions of both the local populations and the local authorities were also taken into account. The most important problems observed included the deepening of marginality, the worsening situation in the labour market, structural demographic degradation of the most marginal settlements and a lack of development programmes. In the Czech Republic the state had no effective regional policy up to the time of the research. Possibilities for future prosperity include exploitation of human and other local resources, the elaboration of local and regional programmes capable of gaining financial support and the utilisation of tranquility and the positive environmental situation. It is the local people who usually represent the main wealth of marginal regions and care for them is the task of the local authorities.