Форуми во заедницата

On the first forum session in the Community Forums Programme, held on Wednesday, November 26, at the Kitka hotel, out of the three topics proposed by the municipality – environmental protection, tourism, and culture - the citizens of Resen chose the environment.

 In the following months this topic, which won the most votes from the forum participants, will be debated about by citizens, who will be able to detect environmental protection issues by means of open discussions, as well as propose specific solutions and projects to be developed during the forum sessions.
 The first forum session which attracted many residents of Resen and of the adjacent villages in the municipality, was also attended by the Mayor Dimitar Buzlevski; Ibrahim Mehmeti, representative of the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC); Dimce Mitreski, representative of the Macedonian Center for International Cooperation (MCIC); as well as representatives of the municipal council, the municipal administration, and other guests.
 According to Mehmeti, the Community Forums Programme will be of great importance for the municipality of Resen.
 “The citizens will have the opportunity to get directly involved in the implementation of this programme, because through specific proposals and ideas they will be able to become involved in the addressing of some of the problems in the municipality. Civic participation is of exceptional importance to this process”, said Mehmeti.
 He added that this programme enables not only direct involvement of citizens in the addressing of problems, but also helps bring local authorities closer to citizens and their needs, thereby providing direct support to the decentralization process. 
  Mitrevski, MCIC programme coordinator, thinks that if the level of interest continues to be as high in the following forum sessions, then the overall implementation of the project will be a success, too.
 “The programme offers citizens, in a democratic and transparent way, the opportunity to get actively involved in the addressing of the problems and in the implementation of the projects together with the municipal administration and the institutions involved in the programme”, said Mitrevski.
 Mayor Dimitar Buzlevski underlined that this programme’s outcomes will have the highest impact on the citizens, because they will be the ones to decide what would be done in the municipality with the funds from the project.
 “The municipality of Resen is always open for cooperation, and in the future we expect to see the implementation of an even greater number of such projects which are of direct interest to citizens”, said Buzlevski.
 The total Programme budget amounts to MKD 8,8 million, of which MKD 6 million are a donation by SDC, MKD 2 million are a donation by the municipality of Resen, and MKD 800,000 represent the contribution of the programme holders.
  The main goal of the Programme is to promote participative involvement of citizens in local decision-making processes and policy development, and at the same time to improv the local administration’s capacity for implementation of projects of importance for local community development.