The Republic of Moldova has registered significant achievements in economic development and poverty reduction. Nevertheless, the development disparities affecting the rural areas continue to increase due to unsolved structural problems of the country's economy and government. The local infrastructure is poorly managed and its condition deteriorates constantly. In particular the provision of public services to the population of rural areas is unsatisfactory. The main problem to be addressed by this project is: rural communes are not able to provide citizens with the necessary public services.

Besides addressing the problems directly at the local and rayon levels, complementary support is regarded necessary at the regional level (RDAs, RDCs) in order to strengthen regional planning and programming capacities for the preparation and implementation of investment measures in various technical sectors (water/sanitation, solid waste management, energy efficiency, district and rural roads).

To cope with these challenges, the GIZ project “Modernisation of local public services (MLPS)” with the beginning of 2012 expanded its mandate to support Moldova in its efforts to improve local public service delivery in a more systematic way through improving regional sector programmes. In the scope of the expanded MLPS, the partner institutions are supported by:

• updating the National Strategy for Regional Development (NSRD);
• updating regional development strategies with regional sector programmes;
• developing a project pipeline of investment fiches (in the priority areas water and sanitation, solid waste management and energy efficiency of public buildings, regional and rural roads; and
• developing capacities of local and regional administrations and development structures (i.e., the RDAs and RDCs).