The Iberoamerican Center of Provincial and Local Studies (CIEPROL), is an academic unit attached to the Faculty of Juridical and Political Sciences of the Universidad de Los Andes, with its main office in the city of Mérida, state of Mérida, Venezuela. It was created by means of a Resolution passed on March 15, 1995 by the University Council of the Universidad de Los Andes, and was born as an answer to the worries of venezuelans over the formation of human resources able to confront the challenges involved in the administrative work of local public entities. Its founders were Dr. Fortunato González, Dr. Elías Méndez V., and Dr. Marcos Avilio Trejo The Iberoamerican Center of Provincial and Local Studies is a body oriented towards applied research within local and provincial realms, in studies, administration, and public management; in the training of specialists in the administration of provincial and local entities, in training processes through short and medium-length intensive professional courses, short non-professional personnel courses, and in expert extension programs of advisement, technical, and service assistance to organs of provincial and municipal administration. General Objectives of CIEPROL: - To carry out research of a basic and applied form in the fields of administration and public management within the parameters of the provincial and the local. - To train specialists in Administrative Law, Planning and Management of state and municipal public entities. - To equip through intensive professional courses of short and medium-length duration and also through short courses for the training of non-professional personnel. - To extend, by means of advisement programs, technical and service assistance to the community, organs of provincial and local public power, and public and private institutions. - To disseminate, in the magazine Provincia, themes linked directly or indirectly to public administration within the parameters of the provincial and the local.