Establishing Democracy through local government: a training program for Poland.

• Author: Leithe, Joni L.

With the fall of Communism in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, countries in the area have begun the mammoth task of rebuilding their economies. What many people in the West may not realize is that these countries also must rebuild their local government structures and processes, most of which were subsumed under central government planning agencies as part of the communist system of control. In the fall of 1991, the Government Finance Officers Association (GFOA) was asked to participate in a project to promote democracy in Poland by strengthening one of the primary institutions that supports it: local governments. The project was sponsored by the United States Agency for International Development (AID), the federal agency primarily responsible for distributing American foreign aid.

The GFOA and other organizations on the project team were given the task of working with the Foundation in Support of Local Democracy, a nonprofit organization established in 1989 in Poland to provide training in local government management. Four of its 15 regional training centers offer degree programs in public administration to students, and all offer a variety of seminars, workshops and evening courses for local government officials. The foundation wanted to develop training modules or courses in four areas: intragovernmental relations, personnel systems, management and organization of services, and local finance and budgeting. GFOA, along with the Institute for Policy Studies of Johns Hopkins University, was responsible for developing the training module on local finance and budgeting.

Training Approach

The goals in developing the finance module focused on the curriculum and the pedagogy. The training team wanted not only to design and deliver a course that was tailored to meet Polish conditions and needs but also involved Polish trainers in the process so that they could offer the course on a continuing basis. Accordingly, the finance module team made four trips to Poland over the life of the project: a planning session; the first course delivery, primarily by the American trainers; another planning session; and the second delivery of the course, primarily by the Polish trainers.

After reviewing GFOA's and other training materials and developing an initial conceptual outline for the course, the training team paid a one-week visit in March 1992, to Szczecin, Poland, the site of one of the foundation's two regional training centers. A liaison from the center in Lodz also traveled to Szczecin to work with the training team. The purpose of the trip was for the American and Polish trainers and the foundation training center's administrators to meet one another and decide together on the content, approach and audience for the first course delivery. The team visited local government officials in the area, telling them of the plans to offer a three-day seminar in public...