Country Nicaragua
Duration Start 1 January, 2012 till 31 December, 2016
Policy field(s) Local economic development
Inter-municipal co-operation
Institutional development
Public policy and planning
Funding Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Netherlands
Objective: institutional capacity building of the Association of Municipalities of Nicaragua (AMUNIC) to help municipalities in local economic development and securing food.
Target group: AMUNIC and the 153 member municipalities
Activiteis: Advice and coaching, on-the-job training, workshops

Municipalities in Nicaragua deal with high numbers of unemployment. Local economic development is needed to deal with that, but municipalities are not sufficient able to stimulate economic activity in their region.The LGCP Nicaragua Programme is focussed on strengthening the capacity of the Asociación de Municipios de Nicaragua (AMUNIC). AMUNIC should then be better able to lobby on the interests of local economic development on behalf of the municipalities and to provide services to municipalities in local economic development policy. Much attantion is paid to strengthening the financial basis of AMUNIC to be able to provide municipalities with services and projects for local economic development.

AMUNIC and VNG International have a long history of over 15 years of working together to strengthen municipalities in Nicaragua. LGCP (2012-2016) supports AMUNIC on the topic of financial sustainability of the own organisation, the training and advising of municipalities in delivering basic public services, and the organisation of staff training and improvement of internal organisational performance.

What do we want to achieve?
- Strengthened capacity of AMUNIC to develop multi-anual plans
- Local economic development by means of good public service delivery
- AMUNIC is capable of attracting financial means on the middle and long term, which can be used for economic development