Форуми во заедницата

The signing of the agreements with the municipalities of Strumica, Debar, Cair, Karbinci, and Caska, marked the launch of the second phase of the Community Forums Programme, funded by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation.

The Community Forums Programme will be implemented in approximately 20 municipalities in the next 3 years, for which the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation has provided CHF 4 million. In the first half of 2008, this Programme will be implemented in the municipalities of Strumica, Caska, Karbinci, Cair, and Debar, and later on it will include other municipalities as well. A total of MKD 28,000,000 has been secured for these five municipalities, of which MKD 8,000,000 come from municipal budgets, and MKD 20,000,000 are a donation by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation.

 

Mr. Romain Darbellay, Head of Cooperation, Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, underlined at the promotion of the Programme, “Through this Programme, the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation wants to help involve citizens in local decision-making processes. The forum approach is not the only approach to make this happen, but it has proven to be a process that yields good results.” For ZELS, this programme is one of the ways to enable citizens to influence and participate in local policy making. According to ZELS President, Mr. Andrej Petrov, the success achieved in the municipalities of Prilep, Kicevo, and Gjorce Petrov, which were part of the pilot phase of the programme, is proof that citizens and municipalities are interested in working together on overcoming the problems. On behalf of the Mayors of the municipalities involved in the programme, the Mayor of Strumica,  Mr. Zoran Zaev, underlined, “For us, this Programme is a way to broaden the scope of decentralisation, and to allow for the decisions to be made by those who are most affected by them. That way we will enable citizens to act as a watchdog over our operations, but also to develop programmes and implement project that are sustainable because of the broad support they enjoy among the citizens of the municipalities. At the same time, this will also increase our transparency.”
 
The Community Forums Programme, which aims to support the decentralization process and enable citizen participation in local community development, will be implemented in at least 20 municipalities in Macedonia, to be phased in over the next 3 years.

At this stage, the Community Forums Programme is implemented by the Foundation Open Society Institute – Macedonia (FOSIM), the Center for Institutional Development (CIRa), and the Macedonian Center for International Cooperation (MCIC). It is coordinated by the Forum Coordination Unit/Strategic Development Consulting, with active involvement of the Association of Units of Local Self-Government (ZELS).