The aim of this diploma thesis is a detailed analysis of tax incomes of municipalities and regions with focus on four particular municipalities and one region in a practical part. From the year 2001 to 2015 the share of tax incomes and their development are evaluated as a part of total incomes. The theme is highly topical due to ongoing discussions among lawmakers on the subject of budgetary allocation of taxes. The law determining the budgetary allocation of taxes is modified frequently, that is why knowing the impact of changes on particular municipalities or regions is helpful. This knowledge can be useful base for planning new adjustments of budgetary allocation of taxes. In the theoretical part there are mentioned expert opinions on financial management of municipalities and regions that arise from their functions and positions. The emphasis is put on incomes of municipalities and regions, especially on tax incomes. Particular changes from 2001 to 2015 in law regulating budgetary allocation of taxes are described here with their impacts on municipalities and regions. Incomes and management of selected municipalities representing various size categories and Liberec region are analysed in the practical part. Financial self-sufficiency is evaluated here. In general municipalities are more financial self-sufficient than regions. This thesis is further dealing with individual tax incomes and impacts of changes in budgetary allocation of taxes on their size. Making models of theoretical incomes is used to simulate effects of diverse law adjustments. Results of the analysis show that tax incomes of municipalities and regions are generally increasing. During the observed period there was tendency to lower the growth of tax incomes of large cities, to increase the growth of tax incomes of small municipalities and to straighten the level of tax incomes of medium municipalities thanks to changes in budgetary allocation of taxes. Tax incomes of regions were increased thanks to changes in budgetary allocation of taxes despite of partial decrease in particular segments of tax incomes after 2012.

Municipal and regional actors, and in particular their respective governments, have key roles to play for society’s transition to sustainability, and many good efforts have been made. However, co-creating sustainable visions and effective governance towards such visions is a complex challenge and an overarching systems perspective is often lacking in the decision making. This is an often-forgotten piece in the sustainability discourse, which risks leading to ’solutions’ in one area that cause problems in another area. This, in turn, risks leading to unnecessary goal-conflicts, sub-optimizations, and slow progress. Despite good insights and actions on sub-parts of the sustainability challenge, capacity to coordinate efforts across sectors is generally missing. The overarching aim of this work was therefore to explore how practitioners, not the least leaders, in municipalities and regions can be sufficiently supported in their missions to enhance cross-sectoral strategic work for sustainability. The overall pursuit of this aim was undertaken through an action research approach with seven Swedish municipalities, two Swedish regions and one Finnish region. Initially, practitioners’ perspectives of what hinders effective sustainability transitions in their municipalities or regions were investigated through focus group discussions. In addition to many specific, context dependent barriers, a prevailing blindness to barriers that are directly linked to a lack of a sufficiently large systems perspective was found. Most of the action research was about testing an existing preliminary implementation model for multi-stakeholder co-creation and co-learning for strategic sustainable development. The model was evaluated in terms of strengths, weaknesses, barriers and enablers through observations, dialogues, round table discussions and a survey. The preliminary implementation model was generally appreciated by practitioners and was generally considered to fill its purpose. However, a need for additional support was pointed out, to assist continued work with the model in the absence of external expert facilitators. A key element of the asked-for support was ways to involve and engage top leaders into active participation already upfront. An approach to achieve this was explored in one of the participating municipalities. This included an initial assessment of current work and existing steering systems and their alignment with the preliminary implementation model, followed by a focus group discussion with political and administrative leaders. In combination with a comprehensive understanding of barriers to effective sustainability transitions, the result from the testing of the preliminary implementation model and the approach to engaging leaders have laid a foundation for methodological support for cross-sectoral municipal and regional strategic work for sustainability.

The goal of this thesis is to describe establishment, development and forms of town twinnig. There is described development, definitions, benefits and forms of town twinning in the theoretical part. There are presented international organisations supporting town twinning too and also there is described a programm called "Town Twinning". Practical part is devoted to description of activities among choosen towns - Hradec Králové, Kostelec nad Orlicí, Vamberk and Albrechtice nad Orlicí. There are some proposals how to support tourism with these partner towns too.