Supporting institutionality in local governments in Peru

(Lima, September 9, 2011). With a view to the region having more efficient municipal organizations, CAF -Latin American development bank- presented the results of the Regional Program for Updating and Improving Local Government (PRAMEG after its initials in Spanish) to the provincial authorities of Cusco and Huancayo.

 

CAF's director in Peru, Eleonora Silva Pardo, handed over the diagnosis of PRAMEG to the provincial mayors of Cusco, Luis Flores García, and Huancayo, Dimas Aliaga Castro. PRAMEG is an initiative whose purpose is to support municipalities so that they are more efficient in providing services for and attending to citizens and responding to their demands.

 

Silva Pardo explained that another of PRAMEG's objectives is to strengthen organizations to make them more efficient with capacity for planning, managing, increasing their revenues, and coordinating their actions by obtaining funding that will ensure greater efficiency in providing their services and in catering to the needs of their citizens by modernizing the mayoralties' official land registers.

 

He pointed out that the results of the report on PRAMEG covers actions that reflect the importance that CAF gives to local aspects, working from the point of view of a common objective, so improving the quality of life of the countries and their citizens.

 

"In its continuous efforts to provide its shareholder countries with comprehensive support in meeting their social, economic, and political needs, CAF not only finances major infrastructure projects, such as the South Interoceanic Highway and the Huancayo-Huancavelica Train, but, in recent years, it has also incorporated the issue of democratic governance in its action plans," he added.

 

Later, on the issue of governance, Silva Pardo also stressed that CAF focuses on four fundamental areas that are interrelated and complement one another, to whit ethics and transparency for development; institutionality; decentralization; citizen participation; and leadership for transformation.

 

The provincial mayor of Cusco, Luis Flores García, thanked CAF for considering his mayoralty for this study and gave assurances that he would take the PRAMEG's findings with responsibility. "Even though we live in democracy, we have major challenges when it comes to winning people's trust, which means we need to take account of and face up to the PRAMEG's findings with humility."

 

The provincial mayor of Huancayo, Dimas Aliaga Castro, admitted that the PRAMEG's findings would be of great help for the development of his province and maintained that one of the challenges his administration has before it is to attend to the citizens in a timely manner. "This report will contribute to strengthening our capacities, which will result in providing our citizens with better services," he concluded.