Building trust among your constituents is an ongoing challenge for any local government practitioner. The challenge is even greater when your country is struggling to embrace the idea of democracy.

According to the Iraqi officials who recently visited ICMA’s Washington, D.C., headquarters, the greatest challenge they face is earning and maintaining the trust of their citizens. Local governments in Iraq are experiencing a lack of financing, and when citizens see inadequate service delivery, they lose confidence in their elected officials and in democracy. This is a similar challenge facing local governments in the United States.

The officials also said that security conditions on the ground have improved and that the images of violence in the media often do not reflect reality.  Iraq, they insist, is safe and rebuilding. They provided examples of how Iraqi local government leaders are taking the lead in completing communty projects and how the U.S. military and USAID-funded projects in Iraq were helping them improve their capacity to deliver essential services.

Several of the visitors were from geographic areas where ICMA is working under the third phase of the USAID-funded Iraq Community Action Program (CAP III). Under the program, ICMA provides training and technical assistance to help district (qada) and subdistrict (nihiya) governments better identify and articulate community needs, prioritize projects and services, and advocate successfully for funding from higher levels of government.

The visitors were senior municipal, provincial, and national government officials with responsibilities for providing and improving essential public services and rebuilding and maintaining the nation’s infrastructure. They included chief administrative officers, the deputy mayor of Baghdad, provincial mayors, city engineers, and the directors of water services, sewage, and infrastructure. Their visit was sponsored by the International Visitor Leadership Program of the U.S. Department of State and administered by Meridian International Center.

Alan Edmond, senior governance advisor for ICMA International, and Craig Rapp, director of Consulting Services, gave presentations on federalism and the roles and responsibilities of national, state, and local government in the United States. Martha Perego, director of Ethics and Advocacy at ICMA, and Teresa Fitzgerald, senior program manager for ICMA’s programs in Iraq, answered questions on ICMA’s work in Iraq and on service delivery and earning citizen trust.

In addition to its work on CAP, ICMA is currently working on the third phase of the Iraq Local Governance Program (LGP). Under LGP, ICMA is responsible for:

• Assessing the current planning and budgeting mechanisms utilized by the provinces and recommending refinements to the mechanisms.
• Guiding GIS advisors in assessing how GIS applications could be used to support provincial analysis and planning at the provincial level.
• Helping the provincial governments coordinate with the Ministry of Planning and other ministries so that the various sources of public funding are integrated.

As part of its mission, ICMA frequently hosts international visitors and provides opportunities for them to hear from city and county managers and staff in the United States. Since the start of 2009, visitors have come from Afghanistan, Bhutan, Brazil, China, the Czech Republic, Haiti, Indonesia, Israel, Italy, Kenya, Kosovo, Malaysia, Micronesia, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, Poland, Russia, Rwanda, Serbia, the Slovak Republic, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Turkey, Uganda, and the United Kingdom.

Visit the ICMA International Web site to learn more about ICMA’s programs.