Municipality of Zitiste Municipality of Zitiste - Sustainable Development Strategy 2014-2020 Zitiste, November 2013 Contents CONTENTS .......................................................................................................................................... 1 A WORD FROM THE MAYOR .............................................................................................................. 3 PREAMBLE ......................................................................................................................................... 4 PREPARATION OF SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT STRATEGY .............................................................. 6 ABBREVIATIONS ................................................................................................................................. 7 METHODOLOGY OF STRATEGY PREPARATION ................................................................................... 8 1. GENERAL INFORMATION ON THE MUNICIPALITY ...................................................................... 10 3.1 ADMINISTRATIVE AND GEOGRAPHICAL POSITION ............................................................................... 10 3.2 BRIEF HISTORY OF THE MUNICIPALITY ............................................................................................. 11 3.3 GENERAL INFORMATION ON THE POPULATION .................................................................................. 12 3.4 CHARACTERISTICS OF LOCAL GOVERNMENT ...................................................................................... 13 3.4.1 Communication of the Municipality .................................................................................. 14 3.4.2 Office for Local Economic Development ............................................................................ 15 2 INDICATORS .............................................................................................................................. 16 3 CURRENT SITUATION ANALYSIS ................................................................................................ 18 3.1 RURAL DEVELOPMENT ................................................................................................................. 18 3.1.1 Description of Current Situation ........................................................................................ 18 3.1.2 SWOT analysis – Rural Development ................................................................................ 35 3.2 HUMAN RESOURCES AND SOCIO-ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT ............................................................... 36 3.2.1 Description of Current Situation ........................................................................................ 36 3.2.2 SWOT analysis – Human Resources and Socio-economic Development ........................... 50 3.3 ENVIRONMENT PROTECTION AND ENERGY ....................................................................................... 51 3.3.1 Description of Current Situation ........................................................................................ 51 3.3.2 SWOT Analysis – Environment Protection and Energy ...................................................... 57 3.4 INFRASTRUCTURE AND COMMUNAL AFFAIRS .................................................................................... 58 3.4.1 Description of Current Situation ........................................................................................ 58 3.4.2 SWOT analysis – Infrastructure and Communal Affairs .................................................... 65 4 INTEGRAL ANALYSIS .................................................................................................................. 66 4.1 KEY FACTORS TO SUCCESS............................................................................................................. 69 5 DEFINING THE STRATEGY .......................................................................................................... 71 5.1 DEFINING THE VISION .................................................................................................................. 71 5.2 DEFINING PRIORITIES, STRATEGIC OBJECTIVES AND DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMMES .................................. 72 6 ACTION PLAN ............................................................................................................................ 74 7 IMPLEMENTATION OF THE STRATEGY ..................................................................................... 106 8 MONITORING AND EVALUATION ............................................................................................ 107 ANNEXES ........................................................................................................................................ 110 ANNEX 1: INDICATORS OF LED STRATEGY RDA BANAT .............................................................................. 111 ANNEX 2: DECISION ON PREPARATION OF LED STRATEGY............................................................................. 138 ANNEX 3: DECISION ON APPOINTMENT OF STRATEGIC COUNCIL .................................................................... 141 ANNEX 4: DECISION ON APPOINTMENT OF WORKING GROUP FOR RURAL DEVELOPMENT .................................. 142 ANNEX 5: DECISION ON APPOINTMENT OF WORKING GROUP FOR INFRASTRUCTURE AND COMMUNAL ACTIVITIES .. 144 ANNEX 6: DECISION ON APPOINTMENT OF WORKING GROUP FOR ENVIRONMENT PROTECTION AND ENERGY ......... 145 1 ANNEX 7: DECISION ON APPOINTMENT OF WORKING GROUP FOR HUMAN RESOURCES AND SOCIO-ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT ................................................................................................................................................... 147 ANNEX 8: BRIEF DESCRIPTIONS OF TOP 10 PROJECTS ................................................................................... 149 ANNEX 9: ID CARD OF LOCAL COMMUNITY ............................................................................................... 159 2 A Word from the Mayor By preparing the comprehensive sustainable development strategy, the Municipality of Zitiste has demonstrated not only the need, but also readiness to plan its future, and create prerequisites to define and implement priority projects. Our community is a multi-ethnic, tolerant, border municipality where dominant economy is highly productive agriculture, while economic resources are being used in sustainable way. That is why we need the assistance of provincial, national and other institutions, as well as the assistance of the EU institutions in order to mobilise all available human and financial resources with a view to enhancing the existing capacities and inducing faster development of our under-developed community. This sustainable development strategy of the Municipality of Zitiste for the period 2014 – 2020 is adjusted to local needs, specifying priority strategic objectives and the methods of achieving these. It is my pleasure to have participative approach applied in the planning process, with all the representatives of the Municipality of Zitiste, private and non-governmental sector involved and contributing significantly with their guidelines to the quality of the document. I am grateful to everyone who actively took part and contributed to the preparation of the document, as well as to my predecessors in this capacity Dusan Milicev and Ljubinko Petkovic for their effort and coordination of the process. Special thanks to Regional Development Agency Banat from Zrenjanin for expert assistance and Provincial Secretariat of Inter-regional Cooperation and Local government Novi Sad for funding this most important document of the municipality. I am deeply convinced that we can implement plans contained in the Strategy only if acting together thus creating better conditions for the citizens of the municipality, and particularly for the young. In Zitiste, November 2013 Municipality of Zitiste Mitar Vucurevic Mayor 3 Preamble The Municipality of Zitiste is undertaking important steps in planning the development in compliance with legislation and modern European trends. Nowadays, strengthening of local capacities and raising of awareness concerning sustainable local development is vital to any country. Modern world has recently been focused on sustainable development issues, which extend beyond the boundaries of a particular country, and due to its inter-dependency, becomes the sustainability issue at supranational level. Accordingly, a number of documents have been signed and adopted setting out wider objectives to certain countries. Following the report of the Club of Rome from early 70s of the 20th century, the Rio Declaration and the Agenda 211from 1992, the world has determined development objectives defining them in UN Millennium Development Goals in 2000. European Union has in the last twenty years crossed the path from signing numerous agreements, conventions and strategies to their own strategy of sustainable development defined in the document Europe 2020, where EU Economic Development is laid down to all the member states and the ones on the way to EU membership, development based on knowledge, preservation of the environment, high level of employment, productivity and social cohesion. Many countries have aligned heir national strategies of sustainable development with the mentioned supra-national strategies and objectives. To the Republic of Serbia, national strategic document in this field is National Strategy of Sustainable Development,2 defining sustainable development as a target