City manager John Lawton and Great Falls staff in Naryn

The Naryn-Great Falls partnership began in 1999, at a moment when the Kyrgyz city started redefining its local government structure. With increasing new responsibilities delegated from the national government and insufficient tax revenues locally, the Naryn city administration had realized that the key to improving services delivery to citizens is more efficient operations. Hence, the areas in which Naryn requested technical assistance from its U.S. counterpart were water, wastewater, and solid waste management.

Naryn is a mountainous city situated about 250 km from Bishkek, the capital of Kyrgyzstan and 200 km from the Chinese border. After independence was declared from the Soviet Union (1991), the government soon after launched a program of decentralization.  Kyrgyzstan's system of governance is comprised of five major levels: republican, oblast, rayon, city, and village. Despite visible efforts to rationalize the governance system, lines of authority remain blurred and accountability and transparency are hard to evolve. The partnership with Great Falls helped Naryn learn about sound and effective techniques of municipal management that involve the citizens and make a better use of local resources.

Great Falls, Montana, was selected for a U.S. twin because the two cities share common geographic and demographic features. Both cities are mountainous and have excellent prospects for tourism development. In Naryn, the closedown of state-run businesses after the fall of the Soviet Union raised the level of unemployment disproportionately. Similarly, the economy of Great Falls transitioned from agriculture to a more diversified base.