Improving Urban Governance and Anti-Corruption in SE Europe

Corruption is considered one of the main obstacles in achieving a sustainable and fair urban development and in delivering effectively public services. Urban development and public service delivery are closely linked to anti-corruption efforts, as some of the activities most vulnerable to corruption occur in urban management (i.e. public land and properties management, issuing building permits, planning, implementing and monitoring public investments in infrastructure).

The anti-corruption approach is part of broader urban governance capacity building implemented under the WB-Austria Urban Partnership Program. The objective of the Program is to assist and support cities and local governments in South East Europe (SEE) in a process of modernization and reform, in order to promote local development for inclusive and sustainable growth, and enhanced urban governance. While global in scope, this Program is targeted at South-East Europe, including Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro, and Serbia.

This methodology has been successfully applied in several SEE municipalities. The approach focuses on the organization’s vulnerability to corruption and goes beyond addressing corruption by enhancing local governments' integrity, transparency and accountability, the principles of sustainable urban development and good urban governance. The approach implies a strategic and participatory process conducted inside local governments:

Strategic: the process follows the strategic planning steps, from diagnosis to solutions elaboration and implementation; it focuses on changing corrupt organizational systems not (only) corrupt individuals; it supports mayors to act as institutional reformers rather than judges or prosecutors.

Participatory: the process involves leaders, managers, and staff, as well as outside stakeholders, who diagnose analytically and without fear, with the support of skilled anti-corruption practitioners, their organization vulnerability to corruption and act as the creators of its future. This is possible as long as the focus is on corrupt systems and not (only) on corrupt individuals.