We can offer you a model and a tool kit for creating a one-stop local information centre.

Turning a good idea into a well-functioning operation within two years, is exactly the result of a project called "Towards Open and Accessible Government at the Local Level in Ukraine" which was carried out in Novograd-Volinsky (Zhitomir region).

The good idea was to create conditions to make local government accessible to the citizens and to establish an information and consultation centre for social affairs to start with.

The outcome went even one step further: after the opening of the information and consultation centre, a communications department was created by merging two departments in the municipal structure in order to function similarly to that in the West-European municipalities.

Information centres were also established in the neighbouring communities Berdichev, Korosten and Baranivka.

And in Siberia, a part of the world where temperatures vary from minus forty degrees in winter to plus forty degrees in summer, information and consultation centres were officially opened in 4 municipalities following the same model as in Ukraine.

"One does not live in a nation, one lives in a town or a village, and making local communities function better is what it all boils down to. One stop local information centers are a great help here.

They are here in place to bridge the gap between local government and citizens", one of the Siberian mayors says.