CoP Fiscal Administration in Municipalities, Ecuador

How it got started

It was the mayor of a small local town who initiated this CoP. At a meeting of the national federation of municipalities he complained furiously about the delays which used to occur in the transfer of funds from central government. Other mayors began to speak and complained about the same deplorable state of affairs. The money transfers were delayed; they depended on the party membership of the mayor and on mysterious preferential treatments while the municipalities had to assume more and more tasks. The lively discussion led to the foundation of a non-party committee of mayors that should intervene politically in the ministry of finances and directly with the president.

Another mayor was not satisfied yet with a political intervention only. He said that the municipalities could improve their fiscal procedures. As examples he mentioned the fiscal administration of the municipality, the levying of taxes, the budgeting, the actualisation of the land register, and the tax allowance for enterprises or the charging of duties for special services. He declared to be interested in knowing how other municipalities dealt with the above issues.

Some of the present mayors immediately gave practical examples based on their experience. Observing that there was obviously a need for a platform to discuss matters among mayors, the assembly decided to form a small group of interested municipalities as a Learning CoP.

Characteristics of its functioning

After one year 80 out of 224 municipalities have joined the Learning CoP. The founding group put up an open agenda regarding topics of the municipal fiscal administration. The municipalities joined working groups dealing a specific topic; they presented their case and shared their experience.

In this first rather informal phase the sharing of practical experience was most important. The interest of the participants and their municipalities defined which the issues to be dealt with were.

Finally there was the proposal for training for the staff working in the municipalities.

In a second phase the federation allowed the CoP to use their web-site as a platform where the elaborated products could be made available for all members of the CoP. The first products to be downloaded are: a collection of good practices for the levying of taxes, a training module for the staff in the municipalities, some simple methods for the actualisation of land registers, a proposal to improve the budget planning – without an increase in costs.

Perspectives for the future

The Learning Community is developing along two lines: on one hand new municipalities join the CoP; it grows in number of members. On the other hand there are more and more products that proved to be useful in daily work and who rapidly spread among the members. There was even an unexpected side effect: the policy making body of the federation got more professional: it increased its activities and now it is able to contribute with practical and technical arguments in the ongoing discussions about the decentralisation.