The second study visit of LAR III Project within the scope of the activity “Conduct technical visits to 3 EU member states” was conducted to France on 2-6 March 2020. The officials from the Ministry of Interior, Directorate General of Provincial Administrations and the Ministry of Environment and Urbanization, Directorate General of Local Authorities, the representatives of the Support Group on Legislation Drafting Process and the Consultative Group of Local Authorities, as well as the Key Expert on Effective Local Service Delivery, Prof. H. Hakan Yılmaz and the Project Associate, Aylin Arıkan from the UNDP LAR III Project Team participated in the study visit. Previously planned meetings on technical issues with the senior officials and experts from the central government and local government agencies were held and the views were exchanged during the visits to Paris and Bordeaux organized by the European Institute of Public Administration (EIPA) and hosted by the French Ministry of Interior and Bordeaux Municipality.
Our participants met with the senior officials from the French Ministry of Interior, European Harmonization Policy Board of the National Regional Compliance Agency, National Office of the Bio-Diversity, National Observatory of the Public Services of Water and Water Cleansing, Bordeaux Metropolitan Municipality as well as some local agency and institutions and found the opportunity to analyse and evaluate the local practices in such areas as public administration system in France, the structure of local administrations, public service sharing, financial management system, income and borrowing system of local administrations, legal and institutional structure of business licensing, rural development and services, legal and institutional structure of water and sewerage administrations, governance issues, as well as the legislation and practices related to relations between central government and municipalities in the context of supervision and surveillance of local administrations.
Our delegation exchanged information related to legislation and practices on anti-corruption strategies in the meeting with representatives of the French Anti-Corruption Agency (L’Agence française anticorruption). Following the meetings in Paris, our delegation received information and made a mutual exchange of views regarding the revenues of local administrations, revenue sharing, improvement of the financial transfer mechanism between the central government and local administrations, tools supporting the local business environment and economic development, as well as innovations in public procurement, in the meetings organized in Bordeaux with the participation of the Secretary General of the Municipality and the Heads of Departments. These meetings have been very useful especially in terms of providing a deep analysis into practices related to local administration system and recent developments in France.
