Ankara, April 11, 2016 — Under the City Creditworthiness Initiative, Turkey Municipal Finance and Creditworthiness Academy started today in Ankara. This week-long training is organized by the World Bank and the Turkish Union of Municipalities with the objective of strengthening Turkey’s municipalities’ financial management capacities. Twenty three Metro Municipalities and 3 utilities have signed up and a total of over 100 participants including training Academy Faculty are participating in the event.
The City Creditworthiness Initiative is committed to supporting cities throughout this process by delivering technical assistance to sub-national authorities in developing countries with the objective of improving municipal credit markets for climate-smart infrastructure projects, using local currency markets if at all possible. The Initiative is conceived to coordinate and integrate existing efforts, instruments, knowledge, and resources from partners and stakeholders by identifying the most effective solutions and implementation arrangements for sub-national entities. Success of the Initiative hinges on the ability by multiple sources to deliver capacity and instruments to clients, drawing from best practice methodologies at a global level.
Within the framework of the Initiative through the City Creditworthiness Academy, the local government officials in Turkey are receiving this intensive one-week capacity building workshop organized from a practitioners’ perspective. The 5-day Academy will deal with the full range of factors affecting cities’ financial management performance, including: revenue management and enhancement; expenditure control and asset maintenance; capital investment planning; debt management; the use of special purpose vehicles to “ring fence” specific revenues; and scoping out options for financing. Using a preliminary self-assessment tool, the participants will develop a customized draft action plan of specific institutional reforms, capacity building, and other actions that will improve their creditworthiness and facilitate their ability to plan, finance and deliver infrastructure services.
The municipalities will be presented with the global best practice experiences (both concept principles and practical experience) from Washington, DC, Mexico, and South Africa, among others. The training will be oriented toward national level policy makers on matters of policy “reforms” or enhancements that could improve the municipal credit market. The Action Plans prepared will lead the Municipalities to methods for broader access to municipal credit, bond structuring, tapping into the local capital market, which is currently limited right to only a few cities.
