VNG Caribendesk

The VNG Caribbean Desk aims to make expertise and knowledge from VNG more readily available to the public entities of Bonaire, Saba and Sint Eustatius.

Objective

The overall objective of the project is to make services of VNG better available for its Caribbean members Bonaire, Saba and Sint Eustatius in order to improve policy making, legislation and implementation. Although the context on the islands in the Caribbean Netherlands is different, they have many tasks that are also carried out by municipalities in the European part of the Netherlands. With this pilot project, some of the VNG services in the area of service delivery and platform will be made better available to these Caribbean members to support them in implementing their tasks.

Approach

This pilot project of 1,5 year -funded by the Dutch ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations- will focus on exploring which VNG services are useful for its members Bonaire, Saba and Sint Eustatius and to make these services better available. First of all we will do a quickscan to find out which VNG services could be of interest to the Caribbean Netherlands, and we will improve communication between VNG and the Caribbean members.

Furthermore we will implement two implementation reviews (‘uitvoeringstoetsen’) in order to examine the consequences of proposed policy or legislation and to provide guidance on possible solutions. Thirdly, the Caribbean members of the VNG will be supported in policy making and implementation in the social domain. Finally, the project will provide a platform to strengthen knowledge exchange between Dutch municipalities and the Caribbean members of the VNG.

Results

The VNG has numerous toolkits, guidelines, internet forums, implementation programmes, model ordinances and best practices in all areas that are relevant for Dutch municipalities. Through this pilot the knowledge available within VNG will be better shared with the public entities in the Caribbean part of the Netherlands, for example through knowledge sharing for consultations on upcoming legislation.

By implementing two implementation reviews the public entities will have better insight on the consequences of proposed policies from the national government for their organisation and implementation. Tailored support will help to improve policies and implementation in the social domain. Knowledge exchange between municipalities in the European and Caribbean parts of the Netherlands can help to improve functioning of municipalities in all parts of the Netherlands.