On 28 September, USAID TEAM in cooperation with MLGA, hosted a roundtable forum to discuss best practices and perspectives on internal communication mechanisms for effective transparency and accountability in at local level, extended use of social media platforms in public communication, and creative approaches for improved citizen participation in decision-making.
Discussion on development and consolidation of internal communication mechanisms brought forward prerequisites of municipalities for a structured internal communication with the aim of enhancing circulation of information and responsibilities of officials in this respect in one hand, and development of functioning mechanism which would supply the respective pubic information offices with necessary inputs for accomplishment of timely information and transparency.
The session on use of social media platforms in public communications addressed several important aspects related to social communication, such as content, messaging, use of images (video and photos), social interaction, language and perspectives of social communication, administration/management of social media accounts, as well as planning aspects and analytical tools offered by social media platforms. 
The final session tackled most important aspects for effective ways of interaction of municipalities with media and local residents and ultimately the citizen participation in decision-making. The discussion included topics related to main actors for public consultations, contemporary forms of encouraging citizen participation (including digital interaction) and innovative forms of interaction, such as focus group discussions, opinion polls, panel discussion, street cations, etc.
In the closing sessions, representatives of MLGA presented findings of municipalities performance for the first half year by stating a slight improvement in respect to transparency and accountability of municipalities in general.
