ICMA recently finished up a multi-year USAID funded project in Ethiopia where it led a team of international NGOs and local Ethiopian governmental units to improve government service delivery at the municipal and regional level. While supporting the Regional & Municipal Services Strengthening (RMSS) project administratively from Washington, DC in recent months, I was fortunate enough to visit some of the engaged municipalities and regional offices earlier this year, as the project was in its final phases. During that trip, I had the privilege to meet local government managers involved in the day-to-day business of service delivery and discuss with them directly the successes the project has had, as well as plans for sustainability going forward.

Several stakeholders recapped for me how RMSS worked with the Somali Regional State Bureau of Finance and Economic Development (BoFED) to conduct a needs assessment which helped BoFED identify its skills, knowledge gaps, budgetary strengths and challenges, as well as a look at infrastructure. Additionally, RMSS worked to strengthen sanitation collection in both Gambella town and the city of Jijiga by advancing a private-public partnership model concentrated on revenue collection and high quality service delivery for sustainability.

One community priority in Gambella town included renovating underutilized public facilities that had initially been designed as public toilets. The toilets were in disuse, and RMSS facilitated a thoughtful planning process that resulted in a community-driven preference to renovate the facilities into an internet cyber café and retail space as revenue-generating entities for local government. RMSS engaged a local engineer and management professionals to provide advice and technical support to the community throughout the process.

Advancing and expanding basic service delivery at the local level in Ethiopia has allowed ICMA to engage its members, establish city-to-city relationships, and utilize technical expertise to make a meaningful difference for the citizens of Ethiopia.