SCTM appeals to its members-towns and municipalities in Serbia, as well as the international public, especially the SCTM partners, for urgent action to better manage the ongoing refugee, migrant and asylum crisis.

A quite exciting workshop, held on 5 and 6 October 2015, in Belgrade, Serbia, brought together experts from two important NALAS Task Forces: the Urban Planning Task Force and the Fiscal Decentralization Task Force.

Mayors and municipal staff from Kutina, Tovarnik, Zabok, Njemci (Croatia), Kanjiza, Subotica, Paraćin, Preševo (Serbia), Kahramanmaras and Istanbul (Turkey) reflected on their experiences and challenges dealing with the refugees influx thus far and discussed the necessary next steps.

NALAS Association Development Task Force met on 1 October 2015 in Zagreb, Croatia to discuss the perspective of Network's activities in the EU integration area.

"Challenges and impact of refugee crisis for Local Governments in South-East Europe", will be the focus of the panel discussion that will be organized on 2 October 2015 in Zagreb, Croatia.

Today, our associate member, the Austrian Association of Cities and Towns (AACT) celebrates big time: 100 years of contribution to the local government development in Austria and Europe.

Within the project "Local Leaders in Southeast Europe: Lead for Change", NALAS organizes the first of the series of Training of Trainers that will create a pool of qualified trainers in the water sector in four SEE countries.

In partnership with its member LGAs, NALAS offers superb online courses for local governments in Macedonian and Albanian languages. Three courses start in October 2015: Sustainable Land Use Planning; Street Addressing and Management of Cities; and Tool for Rapid Assessment of City Energy.

A kick-off meeting of the project was organised in Shkoder, Albania in the period 24-26 August 2015, by the Albanian Association of Communes (AAC), NALAS Secretariat, SWG and GIZ.

Inspired by the success of the last year's event, from 24 until 28 August 2015, in Ohrid, Macedonia, NALAS organized the second Summer School on Local Governance and Intergovernmental Fiscal Relations.