Roundtable Discussion: Advancing Municipal Governance through Capacity Building

This roundtable discussion aimed to bring together key stakeholders to reflect on the progress, challenges, and lessons learned from the decentralisation and deconcentration project and budget support provided by the European Union to the Government of Timor-Leste, and to explore opportunities for future improvements in municipal governance.

Today, we want to take a step back from our daily routines so, as to take some time and consider where we are on our collaborative journey towards enhanced municipal governance in Timor-Leste. Our objective is to dive deep into the outcomes, challenges, and lessons learned from the decentralization project, and most importantly to explore possibilities for further improvement and innovation,” said His Excellency Marc Fiedrich, the Ambassador of the EU Delegation to Timor-Leste.

This was the first roundtable organised by the European Union on decentralisation and deconcentration, of a series of debates. The EU will promote three more roundtables during 2024, to assess and discuss the progress and achievements on the decentralisation process in Timor-Leste.

Background

The SPDD-TL is a-five year project (2020-2025) to support the country's efforts towards strengthening local governance and decentralisation. It has marked significant milestones in the decentralisation strategy of Timor-Leste, notably through the approval of important legislation such as the Law of Municipal Finance and the Law on Administrative Division of the Territory.   

There has been satisfactory progress in implementing the Administrative Decentralisation Strategy, especially in areas requiring enhanced training coordination, management of the Municipal Portal, financial management and capacity building.

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