The partnership transferred successful U.S. municipal models in the areas of water/wastewater management, public information, and economic development to Nis and Sofia. To educate Sofia’s citizens in methods of water conservation and eventually reduce the level of water consumption, Columbus assisted the Bulgarian counterpart to design a water conservation center for raising awareness among school children. Sofia began renovating an old water tower to use as the conservation center facility, and Columbus reviewed the architectural plan for the building and offered recommendations on internal design. Like Sofia, Nis was also experiencing problems with its water supply and water distribution systems. To help Nis tap into new supply sources, Columbus donated software for groundwater modeling to the city.

To increase the level of interaction between the two Eastern European cities and their citizens, Columbus shared its experience in the area of public information dissemination through newsletters, town hall meetings, and the city council. Sofia’s goal was to launch newsletters featuring current topics of municipal management.  The Nis team helped Sofia design newsletters for internal and external use.  While the internal newsletter disseminated recent procedures and practices to city employees, the purpose of the external one was to inform about municipal products and services offered to the citizens.

A team from Columbus also helped Nis design and start the Department for Citizen Information and Civic Initiatives, a one-stop public information center based on the Columbus Mayor’s Action Center. The goal of the Nis Center is to involve citizens in municipal decision-making through a process of filing complaints, feedbacks, and inquiries to the Mayor’s cabinet.  The Center became operational two months before the partnership’s end; its mission is to inform the public and to solicit regular feedback from the citizens on the quality of city services as well as to introduce unprecedented transparency in the operations of the Nis city administration.

Another focus of the partnership was economic development.  In the course of a year, Columbus helped Nis adopt U.S. models of business creation through public-private partnerships.  They also designed a plan for the rehabilitation of an obsolete military airport and old army storage facility in Nis into a new cargo airport and a business incubator.  The partners adopted redevelopment approaches from the Ohio Rickenbacker Airport and the Columbus Sci-Tech Center that would ensure a swift pace of international investments and will revitalize not only the economy of Nis, but the region along the border with Bulgaria. Experts from Columbus helped Nis draft an airport remodeling plan by informing it with strategies on how to collaborate with the Serbian Army, how to design staffing charts and operational plans, how to forge linkages with the local business community, and how to market airport services to potential clients.