The Regional Seminar on Democratic Local Governance in Asia: Impact of Reforms to Deepen Local Democracy will be jointly organized by East-West Center and the Swedish International Centre for Local Democracy and held in Indonesia for a three day period between May 23-25, 2012. The purpose of the seminar is to examine the reforms in local governance in pursuit of creating and deepening local democracy, inclusive of the content and the results of reforms, and the factors constraining and/or supporting such reforms.

Seminar participants will include senior government officials, elected local representatives, eminent experts on the respective project themes, and implementers of local reform projects. The seminar is a follow-up to the regional dialogue held in Phnom Penh to identify critical local governance issues and regional trends. The project will contribute to our understanding of the environment for local democratic governance reform, impacts of past reform efforts and critical factors and elements from contexts in Asia where reform has been able to be implemented and sustained. It will provide a regional forum for the sharing of good practices in local democracy, experiences on the ground of reforms and innovations that emerged from the previous workshop in terms of what has worked and not worked as well as refinements of best practices that emerged, promoting capacity building of local governments, training and research institutions and supporting the network of institutions in the region engaged in democratic local governance.