Project Office for Arctic Development Presents Atlas of Municipal Finance

The Project Office for Arctic Development (PORA) presents the Atlas of Municipal Finance. The project brings together the results of a large-scale study of global practices in financing local development and is intended for municipal heads, regional administrators, experts, and anyone involved in territorial development.

The Atlas is based on a study of municipal finance systems in 11 countries worldwide. It covers eleven countries: Canada, the United States, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Denmark, Iceland, Germany, China, India, and Singapore. It includes over 80 instruments and more than 170 case studies. The authors analyzed various models for generating local budget revenues, mechanisms of interbudgetary relations, investment attraction tools, grant support, municipal borrowing, public-private partnerships, and other sources of financing. This made it possible to compile the most effective international practices and present them in a unified, easy-to-study structure.

The Atlas systematizes international experience in attracting financial resources to the municipal level. The classification is built on two criteria: who is the ultimate recipient of funds and to what extent local authorities are able to influence their inflow.

The Atlas is addressed to two groups of readers. For municipal administrations, it serves as a reference point when searching for financing instruments applicable to specific territorial conditions. For developers of federal and regional policy, it provides an analytical framework for evaluating reforms of the municipal finance system.

«This project was conceived as a practical navigator for those working in public administration. We wanted to show that the possibilities for territorial economic development are much broader than they might appear when looking only at the local budget. Studying the experience of different countries allows us to see which mechanisms actually work, which institutions ensure sustainable financing of local development, and which solutions could potentially be adapted to Russian conditions. The interactive format makes this body of information accessible and convenient for daily work,» says Maksim Dankin, Director General of PORA.

A key feature of the project is an interactive internet portal. By applying various filters, users can view which financing mechanisms are available to businesses in the territory, local administrations, and other stakeholders in different countries, which of them a municipality can implement independently, and which depend on higher-level authorities.

Experts emphasize that the Atlas is not a collection of ready-made recipes. Its task is to provide municipal administrators with a systemic understanding of existing financing instruments and to demonstrate the diversity of approaches used in different countries. Such comparative analysis helps to assess the advantages of various models and generate new ideas for territorial development. In the future, the project will evolve as an open expert platform bringing together municipal practitioners, researchers, and government representatives. It is planned to discuss and develop ideas on new mechanisms for financing local development on this platform.

The Atlas of Municipal Finance and the interactive map are publicly available on the project platform: https://localfundinglab.org/