“Inter-community cooperation is the tool which would help people accept the territorial-administrative reform, making them understand they would benefit of better prices and services”, said Viorel Furdui, head of the Congress of Local Authorities in Moldova, Info-Prim Neo reports. During a show on “Vocea Basarabiei” Radio, he has said the high quality of services for citizens depends on the existence of bigger territorial-administrative units, which are stronger economically and financially. In Moldova, small districts are unable to deal with citizens' problems and needs. Even when local authorities are able to do it, people have to pay a lot of money for drinking water, sanitation or the building of a waste deposit. However, if a few communities collaborated to build an aqueduct or something else to improve people's living, the costs of the construction and services would be significantly lower. The Mayor of Orhei Ion Stratulat attended the show as well. He mentioned some projects implemented with the aid of foreign donors and the involvement of communities surrounding Orhei Town. These communities would've have found things much more difficult without help from the Orhei Town Hall, according to Stratulat. He added that such cooperation would make it easier to deal with natural and technical disasters. Besides, in a small community, services are very expensive, but if they extend in other regions, the prices drop. For instance, Stratulat mentioned small schools in some villages with very few pupils, when huge amounts of money are allotted to maintain these schools, instead of investing in building roads, buying buses and gathering these pupils in bigger schools, where teachers would be paid properly. He said that the upkeep of one pupil in cities was 3.000 lei, while in villages it was 13-14.000 lei. Viorel Furdui argues that Moldova lost precious time and resources because it didn't implement inter-community cooperation.”For years, the focus was on opening local governments in bigger or larger communities, but not on the quality and costs of services provided there”, he said. Representatives of Congress of Local Authorities in Moldova and delegates of the State Chancellery and UNDP Moldova participated in the international conference regarding inter-community cooperation, which took place on September 23 and 24 in Dubrovnik, Croatia. The event was organized by the Council of Europe, OSCE, UNDP and the Local Government Initiative Institute. One of the main priorities of UNDP Moldova, especially of the Common Program of Integrated Local Development, is improving the quality and efficiency of public services through inter-community and inter-municipal cooperation. The Program supports the Moldovan Government in the process of developing the political frame, the administrative system, decentralization, procedures of transferring competences to local authorities and enhancing their role in decision-making The Program is funded by UNDP and UNIFEM, as well as the Swedish International Development Agency.