Governance: Success Stories
Bulgaria: PLEDGE Project Restores People's Faith in Their Own Abilities
After communism's collapse, it became painfully apparent that some Bulgarians lacked the ability and self-confidence to take charge of their lives and improve their economic situation. Ten years later, many regions still experience unemployment rates of 40%, 50%, and higher - particularly in areas with high minority Turkish and Roma populations. USAID established the PLEDGE (Partners in Local Economic Development and Government Effectiveness) program to target local economic development in regions with the highest poverty and unemployment rates. The program's focus is to build local capacity for strategizing community development priorities, and designing projects that address these priorities. PLEDGE brings together local participants from the public, private, and NGO sectors to discuss business conditions, and learn how to use data and information to make good economic choices with available local resources and partnerships. As a result of this training, communities learn to: identify local players and build partnership toward decentralized decision-making; assess municipal economic strengths, opportunities, and needs; leverage resources for maximum benefit; experience success through implementation of a job creation project; and create a community spirit of hope and renewal. In the four years of PLEDGE operation in 35 of some of Bulgaria's poorest communities, 534 new partnerships have been formed; 197 economic development projects have been launched; 88 new businesses have been created; 206 existing businesses have been assisted or expanded; and 3,535 new jobs have been created. Above all, hope has been given to 35 communities for whom "US Government Assistance" has become a very tangible and meaningful term.
Ivan Neikov, former Minster of labor and Social Policy, remarked: "Not only has the PLEDGE initiative been one of the best programs we have seen but one of our greatest challenges too. Today, to succeed on the labor market you need to be highly competitive, to attract funds, to be innovative and able to induce the local community to work in unity when addressing its problems. That is where PLEDGE comes into full swing. Truly, it is within the capacity of no Ministry to do what PLEDGE has done - inspire the people in their search for effective solutions to the problems of their communities, restore their faith in their own strength, and make them combine their actions for an improved quality of life."
The focus of USAID's PLEDGE project is to build economic development opportunities in small, poor communities with high unemployment. Slivo Pole, a rural, isolated municipality with over 52% unemployment and a large Turkish Muslim population unified its citizens around a project to develop private apricot orchards in six poverty-ridden local settlements. A community non-profit organization was established to expand agricultural opportunities to more citizens. Reclaiming fallow land was the beginning of the restoration of private farming traditions that had been destroyed during communist rule. The project created orchards which are now the first family farms in the municipality. The project has generated 48 jobs, with an additional 24 jobs anticipated when the trees bear fruit. This project creates a positive business climate, which it is hoped, will attract investors, as well as develop private entrepreneurship and self-employment in the community.
Dr. Krumov, Mayor of a local village, remarked: "It's not just about making money. What we failed to grasp was that our problems went beyond land, beyond the lack of money, beyond the lack of technical equipment, beyond the material world. We failed to grasp the hopeless psychological desolation of a great number of our landowners. PLEDGE has offered us hope."
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