As recently as a decade ago, few would have expected Romania to export lessons on democracy building. Now, Partners-Romania is spreading its local government reform expertise throughout Central and Eastern Europe. Since May 1998, the Center’s Working Together regional program has provided a range of municipal development skills training to local government training institutions from 18 countries (Albania, Armenia, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia, Georgia, Hungary, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Republic of Moldova, Romania, Russia, Slovakia, Slovenia, and Ukraine), and is building a sustainable international network of municipal trainers and organizations involved in local government reform.

The program brings together an ethnically diverse group, many from traditionally warring countries, to participate in a series of regional training programs focused on good governance, citizen participation, competent leadership, and the development of training manuals. The training methodology is based on experiential learning about the role elected officials are called upon to perform. It is designed to build bridges between citizens and governments through open communication, shared leadership and productive collaboration. Recipients, trained also to become trainers, return to their countries to impart these new skills to public leaders nationwide. A quarterly newsletter, FORUM International, keeps participants abreast of training resources, evaluative statistics and new ideas.

Key to the success of this program is Partners-Romania’s creative collaboration with the United Nations Center for Human Settlements (UNCHS-Habitat). Primary training materials for building local government capacity were originally developed by Fred Fisher for Habitat, and have since been extensively tested and adapted. The series consists of eleven manuals that reflect the different roles performed by elected officials, including policy maker, decision-maker, communicator, facilitator, negotiator, financier, overseer, enabler, power broker, institution builder, and leader. In order to expand the scope of training topics into other related areas, Partners-Romania, in collaboration with Partners-Hungary and Partners-Slovakia, is working with UNCHS-Habitat to create a new set of manuals and materials on participatory processes and conflict resolution skills.

To complement the training programs and strengthen cross-border relations, Partners-Romania conducts an annual Steering Committee meeting, which convenes participants to exchange experiences and explore collaboration on common projects.

Participants of Working Together find the training extremely useful. A Slovenian participant from the School of Public Administration at the University of Ljubljana wrote, "The high quality of the training was a result of careful planning and very skilled trainers, a combination of professional expertise and personal excellence. The cultural diversity of participants also added outstanding dimensions. I hope you and your organization will continue to offer new seminars and workshops." A Croatian participant from the Local Democracy Agency in Sisak concurred, saying that the emphasis on "real life" situations during the training workshops was extremely useful to her, particularly in learning about like organizations in various stages of development across the region.

By working together on challenges facing each local government in the region, network members continue to foster respect for different leadership styles, to discover new management and leadership tools, and to make progress toward reconciliation.