Public-private partnership: LSG Best Practice Portal finds new partners to develop useful content for LSG bodies, including farmers

Media Contacts: Nurgul Jamankulova, Content Administrator of the LSG Best Practices Portal, 0770 77-17-11, 0555 / 0500 31-33-85, e-mail: njamankulova@dpi.kg

Soon, the LSG Best Practice Portal www.myktyaimak.gov.kg will have new useful content for specific groups in local communities, as decided by the participants of the official presentation of the Portal, which was combined with the magazine "Municipality" in Bishkek on April 15, 2021.

Representatives of the Government, NGOs, development partners (donors), projects aimed at improving life in the regions, as well as representatives of the LSG bodies discussed the possibilities of the Best Practice Portal to spread knowledge on how to solve local development problems.

"Many examples, methodologies and tools to solve local problems are developed, but not kept anywhere. Meanwhile, LSG bodies, residents of cities and villages need this information.  To solve this problem, the State Agency for Regional Development, together with the LSG Union and Development Policy Institute have created the Portal of Best Practices, - said Ramis Alykulov, Deputy Director of the State Agency for Regional Development under the Ministry of Agriculture, Water Resources and Regional Development (SARD).

In April 2021 more than 3,000 users have registered on the Portal. Since the end of 2020 the Portal has held about 25 online events, posted about 20 video lessons and more than 90 examples of best practices on public services, citizen participation in local self-government and other aspects of community development and LSG bodies. Activities and consultations related to the election campaigns of local council deputies, in particular, about the opportunities for women to utilize the 30% quota for women deputies, caused particular interest about the Portal.

Nadezhda Dobretsova, Chairwoman of the Board of the Development Policy Institute (DPI), said that the Portal would eventually become an important source of knowledge about local development and added: "It is incorporated into the state knowledge management system. It was given a third-level domain name myktyaimak.gov.kg, which is hosted on the servers of the state institution TRANSKOM under the State Digital Development Service under the Government of the Kyrgyz Republic. The Portal will be managed by the LSG Union through the Central Asia local government Academy.”

The newly elected deputy of Ak-Beshim local council Janbolot believes that the Portal helped him successfully conduct the election campaign and become a deputy, as the Portal taught him the duties of the deputy and how to speak to fellow villagers about the real issues, not resorting to populism, but relying on a sound election program. [1]. The head of the Alamudun aimak, Nizabek Kolbayev, who became a two-time winner of the Best Practice Contest hosted by the Portal shared a story about success of the electronic library to representatives of other aimaks and libraries in the villages of Kyrgyzstan.

As a result of discussion, there were new ideas on expanding the audience and content of the Portal. For example, Aigul Niyazalieva from the Federation of Organic Movement "BIO-KG" proposed to create a targeted content for women farmers: "It is good that on the Portal you were able to organize training and consultations for women candidates for deputies of local councils. Such online resources are particularly important now, during the epidemic. We need to go further and do online training for women entrepreneurs and women farmers so that they can also participate in the work of local councils and promote their ideas."

The event was funded by the Swiss Government through the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation within the framework of “Public Service Improvement” project, implemented by Helvetas and Development Policy Institute.

Media Contacts: Nurgul Jamankulova, Content Administrator of the LSG Best Practices Portal, 0770 77-17-11, 0555 / 0500 31-33-85, e-mail: njamankulova@dpi.kg

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[1] All event materials are available in: http://myktyaimak.gov.kg/events/single-event?id=17