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Martin Lux (ed.) 2003

Housing Policy: An End or A New Beginning?

Budapest: Open Society Institute

This book was prepared under the "Local Government Policy Partnership" Program, the joint project of two donor organizations. The British Government's Department for International Development (DFID) and the Open Society Institute, Budapest's Local Government and Public Service Initiative (LGI) launched this regional program together. The "Local Government Policy Partnership" (LGPP) projects intend to contribute to policy development and innovation within these countries (http://Igi.osi.hu/lgpp/).

The LGPP hopes to develop expertise and support professional cooperation amongst local government specialists throughout Central and Eastern Europe. Parallel to this, the experiences gathered throughout the region should be made available in Central and Eastern Europe as well as in Central Asia. The core partner countries are the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia. However, other countries have been invited to participate in these regional projects, in order to help facilitate direct information exchange and comparisons of policy efforts.

LGPP publications include policy studies and proposals that have been presented to government officials and experts in the countries involved. Targeted beneficiaries of LGPP projects are national government ministries, local government associations, research and training institutions, and individual local authorities throughout the CEE region. LGPP intends to publish three studies a year.

In the first year of operation, the LGPP selected the following three policy areas for analysis: (i) education financing and management; (ii) regulation and competition of local utility services, and (iii) public perception of local governments. The policy studies were widely disseminated in our region. They supported the policy dialogue (e.g. on education in Macedonia) and served as training materials (e.g. for regulatory experts).

Topics for the second year of LGPP (2001/2002) were rather different by nature:

decentralization and regional development;
the relationship between local government size, local democracy and local services delivery;
local government and housing.

In this volume, the practices and lessons of local social housing policies are discussed. Studies from six countries describe the different patterns of privatization during the past decade and give an assessment of national housing policies. Using the standardized survey of this LGPP project, the country reports evaluate the effectiveness of local government housing policies. Both the country papers and the summary chapter formulate some policy recommendations for national and local governments.

Ken Davey Gábor Péteri
November 2002

Download contents of the publication (format *.pdf, size 264 kB)

In order to obtain the publication, please contact:

LOCAL GOVERNMENT AND PUBLIC SERVICE REFORM INITIATIVE
P.O. Box 519, H-1397 Budapest, Hungary
Phone: (36-1) 327-3104; Fax: (36-1) 327-3105
E-mail: lgprog@osi.hu; Web Site: http://lgi.osi.hu

Local Government and Public Service Reform Initiative

Local Government and Public Service Reform Initiative (LGI), as one of the programs of the Open Society Institute (OSI), is an international development and grant-giving organization dedicated to the support of good governance in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) and Newly Independent States (NIS). LGI seeks to fulfill its mission through the initiation of research and support of development and operational activities in the fields of decentralization, public policy formation and the reform of public administration.

With projects running in countries covering the region between the Czech Republic and Mongolia, LGI seeks to achieve its objectives through:

Development of sustainable regional networks of institutions and professionals engaged in policy analysis, reform oriented training, and advocacy;
Support and dissemination of in-depth comparative and regionally applicable policy studies tackling local government issues;
Support of country specific projects and delivery of technical assistance to the implementation agencies;
Assistance to Soros foundations with the development of local government, public administration and/or public policy programs in their countries of the region;
Publishing of books, studies and discussion papers dealing with the issues of decentralization, public administration, good governance, public policy, and lessons learnt from the process of transition in these areas;
Development of curricula and organization of training programs dealing with specific local government issues;
Support of policy centers and think-tanks in the region.

Apart from its own projects, LGI works closely with a number of other international organizations (Council of Europe, Department for International Development, USAID, UNDP, and World Bank) and co-funds larger regional initiatives aimed at the support of reforms on sub-national level. Local Government Information Network (LOGIN) and Fiscal Decentralization Initiatives (FDI) are two main examples of this cooperation.

In order to obtain the publication, please contact:

LOCAL GOVERNMENT AND PUBLIC SERVICE REFORM INITIATIVE
P.O. Box 519, H-1397 Budapest, Hungary
Phone: (36-1) 327-3104; Fax: (36-1) 327-3105
E-mail: lgprog@osi.hu; Web Site: http://lgi.osi.hu

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