More than 50 million soms will be allocated to the municipalities of Issyk-Kul and Jalal-Abad oblasts to improve services at the local level

The second phase of the Public Service Improvement (PSI) project was presented on September 24, 2019 in Bishkek.

An introductory event was attended by the heads of municipalities of Issyk-Kul and Jalal-Abad regions, representatives of SALSGIR, the Swiss Embassy in the Kyrgyz Republic, as well as international organizations.

During the seminar, the main goals and objectives of the second phase, issues of gender sensitivity and equality, as well as plans for grants to improve services at the local level were announced.

“As part of the implementation of the second phase of the project, we plan to allocate more than 5 million soms to 25 municipalities of Issyk-Kul and Jalal-Abad oblasts as small grants to increase the capacity of municipalities. After that, these municipalities will be asked to develop Service improvement action plans (SIAP), more than 48 million soms will be allocated for the implementation of the best SIAPs. It is worth noting that as part of the first phase of the project, 38 SIAPs were implemented for a total of 98 million soms,” said Asel Mambetova, PSI project Manager

Representative of the Embassy of Switzerland Lucien Aegerter noted the importance of understanding that improving public services covers much more than improving infrastructure and buying new equipment.

“The focus should be more on improving service management to ensure quality, access, efficiency and sustainability. For us, the most important factor is the sustainability of the services provided, which is why work will first be done to increase the capacity of municipalities,” said Lucien Aegerter.

The event ended with the signing ceremony of memoranda of cooperation and grant agreements with representatives of all 25 municipalities.

The project is financed by the Government of Switzerland through the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) and implemented by Helvetas Kyrgyzstan and Development Policy Institute (DPI)