By Francis Talasasa, Reporter

A 3 days long workshop on Local Governance Strengthening was successfully held, facilitated by UNDP at Palasia Hotel this week.

The workshop pulled gaps closer and brought a better understanding of the roles and concepts of local governance system and decentralization.

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Thirty-eight participants attended the workshop, a mixture of governors, legislators, speakers, Traditional chiefs, finance staff and clerks from various states such as Aimeliik, Ngeremlengui, kayangel, Melekeok, Hatohobei with two other observing states, Sonsorol and Ngatpang.

President Remengesau opened the workshop with welcoming remarks witnessed by the Minister of State and other supporting stakeholders.

The workshop started with an introduction by UNDP Regional Program Adviser Paul Duong in a background that spells out a better understanding of the state government system.

Six topics are the outlined including, Creating and Understanding Local Governance and Decentralization, Contextualizing Local Governance and Decentralization, Traditional Governance System, Public financial management, Public Access Information with sessions of discussions and action plan activities.

During the final day, Governors and other State Government officials took time and listened to presentations from a key government department office of the Attorney General, The Ministry of Finance, a team from the department of the Public Auditors office.

All participants were recognized for their contribution to constructive discussions and were awarded a certificate in a presentation conducted by the Minister of state, UNDP facilitators and Director of the Bureau of Domestic Affairs.

United Nations Development Program (UNDP), as part of the Global Development Program of the UN system, plays a role with Governments and Development partners in building human capacity assisting in areas lacking support.

Bureau of Domestic Affairs, a department within the government is the key player that created the initiative together with the Ministry of Finance and came up with the program. It has then built up an idea to review and identify areas that lack concrete support on the system of state government after transparency and accountability have become a demand to the public. [/restrict]