Civil society organisations should stick to their original role of the corrective mechanism within the implementation of the Strategy “South East Europe 2020″, it was said at the consultative meeting organized by the Institute alternative (IA).
The meeting was organised within the project “Governance for Montenegro’s Growth: It Depends on Us!” which is being implemented by IA with the financial support of theRegional Cooperation Council (RCC).
“Governance for Growth” is a horizontal, all-pervading pillar of the SEE Strategy covering issues of good governance, fight against the corruption and the judicial reform.
Citizens’ expectations and their satisfaction with the living standard are in the greatest correlation with the progress within this chapter, according to the results of “Balkan Barometer”, extensive public opinion survey aiming to monitor the implementation of the strategic goals of the region.
The research, modeled by the “Eurobarometar”, is only one of the mechanisms developed for the monitoring of the implementation of the regional strategy, whose results are available at the separately developed page of the Regional Cooperation Council.
The role of civil society, when it comes to “Governance for Growth”, should be focused on the continuous review of the certain indicators and their value, as well as the enabling the qualitative monitoring of the reform, considering the fact that the numbers used to indicate the effectiveness of the regional Governments offer simple overview and comparison among countries, but they do not offer the detailed insights into the matter.
Furthermore, taking into consideration that there the countries of the Western Balkans have committed themselves to implement numerous strategies, it is necessary to oversight their mutual compliance and their compliance with the key goals of the Strategy “SEE 2020″. During the meeting, it was pin-pointed that there is a great potential in mutual empowerment of the reforms within the “Governance for Growth” and process of the accession to the EU, particularly in relation to the certain chapter, such as Public procurement (5) or Judiciary and Fundamental rights (23).
Moreover, the key responsibility for the application of the Strategy lays with the national administrations which is why the civil society organisations should use that fact as the additional space for the advocacy of their recommendations and the setting of the strategic priorities on the national level.
The event organised in Podgorica has gathered more than 30 representatives of the civil society. Speakers on the behalf of Institute alternative were Stevo Muk, the President of the Managing board and Milena Milošević, public policy researcher. Different aspects of the implementation of the “SEE 2020″ Strategy and potential way of involvement of the civil society have been presented by Dragan Đurić, Programme Manager in Regional School of Public Administration (ReSPA), Milena Lazarević, Senior Programme Manager at the European Policy Centre from Belgrade, Natalija Shikova on behalf of the Center for Change Management headquartered in Skopje, Emsad Dizdarević representing Transparency International Bosnia and Herzegovina and Rijad Kovač on behalf of Evaluation Society in Bosnia and Herzegovina
Panel discussion is organized within the project “Governance for Growth – It Depends On Us!” which is being implemented by Institute alternative with funding by the Regional Cooperation Council under implementation of RCC’s South East Europe 2020 Strategy. The views expressed during the event can in no way be taken to reflect the official opinion of the Regional Cooperation Council.
