 Approximately 70 participants from the local authorities, implementing organizations, business community, civil society organizations, media and public services (institutions) attended the networking meeting which took place on February 5 and 6 in Ohrid, in the presence of representatives of the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC).
Representatives of nine municipalities (Aerodrom, Mogila-Novaci, Radovis-Konce, Gostivar, Krusevo, Makedonski Brod, and Bogovinje), five organizations implementing the Programme in the third cycle of Phase 2, as well as other stakeholders, shared their experience with the forum process and ideas about the future development of the forums.
Statistics about the course of the project and intermunicipal forums (participation, ethnicity, gender, etc.) was presented at the first day of the Meeting, while the second day was devoted to debates about the quality of the forum process and possible solutions to problems.
The topics discussed included the following: the Forum as a place for debate (how it's managed, the quality of the debate); Forum topics (topics suggested by the Municipality, how ther are chosen, what other topics would be of interest to the intermunicipal forums, if they brought the two municipalities closer, could they be developed into topics for debate); filtering of solutions (how these project ideas are refined and improved, and later filtered) and project ideas.
"We need to make sure we have included all citizens in the Forums", said Tatiana von Steiger Weber, Head of Cooperation at SDC, at the opening of the meeting. She added that it was very important to ensure transparency in every step of the process.
Some of the issues discussed by the participants in the meeting included the participation in the forum sessions of the Municipal Council and of the Mayor; ensuring good allocation of resources and staff from the municipal administration; as well as identifying one of the key objectives of the Forum - utilization of citizens' capacity in the process of project development.
"The Municipality should organize Forums as a form of public participation of all citizens in the municipality", said Tanja Gjorgjievska, representative of ZELS, in her speech about the Forums' future. She presented previous experience, including the decision to change the municipalities' Statutes which would mean institutionalization of the Forums, as well as development of a Rulebook on Forum Organization and Delivery.
The experiences shared included workshops delivered in the presence of the Mayors, their support for the continuation of the Forums, as well as presentation of the regulations (decision and rulebook). This also includes the Forum's objective, implementation stages, minimum attendance, participant selection principles, funding of the Forum, as well as specifics of the procedure.
|
Current activities 
