Municipal Finance Assessments Launched

The MERP supported municipal finance assessments were launched in February 2021. To kick-off the process, Innovative Ideas, the service provider contracted for this task, conducted field visits to the Union of Tyre Municipalities and the Urban Community Al-Fayhaa to introduce the assignment.

As part of the assessment, Innovative Ideas will review key public finance components of selected unions and municipalities, including in terms of financial management, human resources, systems and procedures, best practices, bookkeeping and documentation systems, transparency, and information technology. The assessments will result in a set of comprehensive recommendations for each assessed union and municipality. The data will also be integrated into a scorecard which will allow for comparison of municipal finance systems and processes across assessed municipalities and unions.

Since the launch of the assessments, Innovative Ideas has finalized the desk review, methodology, and inception report for this assignment. Data collection is ongoing. As a next step, a municipal profiling process will be conducted in July 2021. The profiling process will help shed light on the political, economic, social, and demographic context within which each municipal finance system functions, as well as the key legal, regulatory, and procedural frameworks relevant to each municipality and union of municipality.