Where does success in local development come from?

Key words: participation, ownership This paper presents the case study of City of Samobor where participatory approach has been used in order to create one Strategic document. At the end of 2001 few ambitious people from the City Board of City of Samobor expressed the will to produce Strategic program for period of 10 years. The Institute of Economics offered its? assistance cooperating in the participatory mode. Afterwards, at the beginning of 2002 the Development Board was established and took the role of coordinating body. After public hearing had finished, at the end of 2002 City Council adopted the Program. The Institute of Economics shows in this particular case methodological guidance and ability to manage the process without interference in getting the decisions, what is considered as the main task of City Board. Following the principles of participative methodology the most relevant document for the development of some local community was created. In the first step the Development Board determined four different groups whose task was to undertake the SWOT analysis. This very simple tool both, for those who undertake it and those who read it, in a simplified way shows strengthens, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. For the first time, the City Board of the City of Samobor has been observing itself from introspective point of view, noticing how the things from the inside really look like. The most difficult task was to grade how the City Board functions itself. Be enough objective to comment itself appears as kind of a burden for those who undertake the analysis, and those who benefit from the results, taking into consideration the fact that analysts will be exposed to the critics -positive and negative- of interest groups. After SWOT analysis had been undertaken, the Development Board prepared the workshop which purpose was to gather all the interest groups at one place and to discuss about analysed materials. The outcome of workshop was input to the most important part of the document - the list of necessary projects and measures to be done, and its? excerpt, the Operation plan - list of the tasks with the highest priority level. The proposal of Strategic program was adopted in the mid 2002 and put on public hearing that is the highest possible level of participation. The City Council adopted the final document at the beginning of December 2002, a year after first preliminary discussions about the elaboration of such important document. The implementation phase, where the professionals explicitly show their methodological management, is about to commence. The most relevant results of this case are as follows: - high level of participation - participative methodology is probably one of the most powerful instruments of social control - ownership ? only the feeling of ownership of the document provides its? implementation - contemporary adopting of budget and program ? the practice of adopting budget and program rarely appears in Croatia even though the program is not actually feasible without detailed comparison these two documents - cycling process of adoption of budget ? on a yearly basis taking into account Strategic program and Operation plan - public hearing ? for the first time public hearing is more than a formal, post festum, discussion on document