The competition’s aim was to visualize problems faced by local governments and local communities as well as to identify solutions and good practices. 

Artists and authors of the posters from different regions of Kyrgyzstan, representatives of the State Agency on local self-governance and interethnic relations under the Government of the Kyrgyz Republic as well as representatives of the Embassy of Switzerland in the Kyrgyz Republic participated in the opening ceremony. During the event, winners and successful participants received awards.

“I am convinced that the visual art works that we see today will encourage citizens of Kyrgyzstan, including women, youth and vulnerable groups, to actively participate in the life of their communities and get involved in local self-governance,” – said Lucien Aegerter, representative of the Embassy of Switzerland in the Kyrgyz Republic.

The competition was organized by the “Municipalitet” magazine (www.municipalitet.kg) under the “Voice of citizens and accountability of local self-governments: budgetary process” project (www.vap.kg) funded by the Government of Switzerland through the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC).  The competition was conducted by the Development Policy Institute with participation of design.kg, the Union of artists of Kyrgyzstan and the Chuikov Art college.

The project aims at more transparent and effective management of local finances by local self-governments through increased accountability and citizen participation in decision making processes.

A well-balanced fiscal policy lays the ground for broad-based economic growth. In view of strengthening the capacities of the Kyrgyz authorities in formulating and implementing  effective macroeconomic policies, in capturing and assessing fiscal risks and in promoting fiscal transparency, this five-day training, tailored to the needs of the Kyrgyz Republic, was organized for representatives of Government agencies directly involved in the compilation of fiscal statistics.

The first workshop on this topic, in which six Kyrgyz officials participated, took place in November 2016 in Baku. Following this event, the IMF undertook a series of in-depth consultations with the Kyrgyz authorities in May this year, in order to further enhance the fiscal data compilation and to define the next steps to be taken to continue improving fiscal transparency.

Mrs. Ivana Jablonská, the project manager from the Statistics Department of the IMF congratulated the Kyrgyz authorities on the significant progress they have made in recent years in improving the coverage, timeliness and consistency of fiscal statistics. She highly appreciated the commitment of the Kyrgyz compilers and stressed the importance of inter-agency co-operation in the compilation of various data subsets of macroeconomic statistics.

The officials of the Ministry of Finance, National Statistical Committee, National Bank and the Social Fund demonstrated keen interest in learning the conceptual framework of the international standards and best compilation practices. The appropriate combination of lectures and case studies helped them to apply the newly acquired theoretical knowledge on practical exercises adapted to the Kyrgyz reality. The work on case studies provided a good opportunity to understand the practical application of fiscal statistics for the national policy making and cross-country comparisons.