EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Institutional framework: responsibilities of local government in basic service 足provision In most countries of the Eurasia region, local governments are allocated responsibility for the provision of water and sanitation (with the exception of Armenia and Georgia), district heat supply (with the exception of Moldova and Tajikistan), solid waste
issues relating to tariff policy for public services. Despite the implementation of decentralization reforms in most countries of the region, and the development of local self-governance, decentralization processes are frequently inspired by the wish to get rid of the excessive centralization inherited from Soviet times, rather than by
84%
Caucasus and Central Asia
Trends in urban drinking-water coverage 2011: water piped to premises
Source: Progress on Sanitation on Drinking-Water. 2013 Update. World Health Organization - Unicef.
management, and intra-urban passenger transportation services. A survey of representatives of cities in Russia, Armenia, Georgia, Ukraine, Moldova, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan revealed that responsibility for the provision of basic services falls to municipal governments in 88% of cases. Central and regional governments play a minor role.
an understanding of the advantages of a proper distribution of authority between various levels of power. As a result of decentralization reforms, many local authorities had to assume the responsibility for the provision of basic services without the relevant authority or resources required to do so successfully. Access to basic services
At the same time, in most countries, almost all regulation of basic services is the domain of central government (with the exception of the haulage and disposal of solid waste and passenger transportation services, in some countries). State or regional public authorities, or specially created national regulatory bodies, tackle the
In the 1990s, the countries of the Eurasia region witnessed a general decline in the access of the population to public services and a downward trend in service quality. In the past decade the situation, as noted, has stabilized and shows some signs of improvement.