To my understanding, civil society organisations can help train local government officers. the best way to train local government officers would be to organise meetings with both civil society, local and central government and to organise question and answer sessions, where experts can exactly present what is possible according to the rules and regulations in place. However, in most countries, the most important issues need to be dealt with at central government level. As long asn these issues are not solved at national level, environmental issues and social issues will not be solved at local level (biaised by experiences in Democratic Republic of Congo). Wageningen University, centre for development innovation.

Dear Shuree

We have a program at RWI devoted to building the capacity of subnational governments (as well as oversight actors) on oil, gas and mining. Please have a look at this http://www.revenuewatch.org/issues/subnational

We will soon post a number of case studies and policy papers from some of our subnational projects. 

Happy to share more information and put you in touch with a colleague that covers this area at RWI

best 

Matteo 

i share Dieuwke comment on government officer being train by civil society group, in my experience we took some people who has corporate experience on finance , environment, marketing and social organizers from civil society group and asked them to join governance. Each plays its role in this exercise...what are the outcome after 2 years ? we were able to do Environmental Ordinance in Mining ..  revenue generation  was going up on mining ,  regular  meeting of PMRB (provincial mining regulatory board) with all stakeholders (government,companies,cultural communities and civil society groups) thus transparency of all is evident.

Why not involve the Mining Section of  the Chamber of Commerce and Industry? In a country like the DRC the chamber of commerce, FEC, has everyone under one roof: private, mixed, State-owned and public local/multinational companies...This, I think, provides a range of expertise and experience, if properly harnessed, that could contribute in delivering capacity building to local governments... Just a thought.

'CSRely' yours 

We have a small project funded by the Ford Foundation that is building improved capacity for planning and budgeting at district level in the district where we have a mineral exploration project in Central Kalimantan, Indonesia. It is designed to improve the ability of government to respond more effectively to priorities and needs raised by communities during the annual planning process in Indonesia. This is part of a program aimed at strengthening the quality of governance in the district.

per  our experience we took corporate guys to run as technical consultants in finance, marketing, security and management inbeded in Local Government Units doing executive functions to help out fast track development per leadership agenda. . .immersion in the LGU for awhile is a challenge while planning, leading, organizing and putting some controls to the news agenda set by the local leadership...this means do we have laws, ordinances that governs stakeholders in mining? are the stakeholders know their roles? is principles of transparency, accountability and sustainability a part of it all? and ofcource the social responsibility base on justice towards the cultural communities is installed? if it is so then we can say we can start empowering the stakeholders its duties and responsibilities and learn and relearn all its outcome for the benefit of all.

capacity building of LGU should done base on local culture and sentiments and navigating it to the accepted norms in the industry by adapting the best practices done by other countries. i would even go further if World Bank Institute takes its cue from Goxi members who share their ideas and convene them together and discussed in one setting or allow each other visits and learn what were done in its locality thus making the capacity building meaningfull and effective.