In the program, Advancement of Public Administration and Local Government CCI has 27 approved projects realized on the territory of the Republic of North Macedonia and the Balkan countries. There are more than 20 donors for the realization of the projects in this program.
The beginnings
Training and exchange of experiences – living in the society that is developing new order directed towards the democracy and the citizens, in the beginnings, the public administration and the local government officials were facing with the challenges of efficiency, learning new methods of work and respect towards the citizens. In those times, we have dedicated our work to providing specific training for the administration members enabling them to learn from the foreign experiences.
Linking citizens with local government – For permanent and specific communication of the citizens and the Local Government, CCI initiated and realized the opening of the first Open Office for citizens in Macedonia. This was one of the positive examples which later was followed by other Local Governments in Macedonia.
2002-2005
Efficient public administration – More efficient public administration is a desire to any society, which is why we have realized many activities in Prilep and Bitola working with the Local Governments, Tax Administration Departments and Inter-Municipality Centres for Social Work. Educating the employees of these institutions and monitoring their work has brought concrete changes. Information Offices were opened, the working space was marked and beneficiaries got privacy. Also, the mutual agreements among institutions were signed that helped beneficiaries to save time and money during the procedures.
Active citizens – what has been more than evident in our developed centre was the need for activation of the citizens’ and their motivation to take part in the community life. We have implemented different types of activities including the development of community action plans that had an influence on the awareness-raising of the community for their rights and obligations to contribute to the improvement of the community life.
2006-2010
Decentralization – within the process of transferring of the governance from central to a local level, the representatives from the public administration and the local government were lacking knowledge of implementation of the new laws and competences. For making this process more understandable, we have realized a series of training for the employees in the public administration, performed a series of public tribunes, radio and TV shows and an information distribution campaign. Because this is a new and important process, we organized monitoring for its implementation and the results were presented in front of the public in a transparent manner.
Participation in local policymaking – this new decentralized society has brought the need for capacity building and activation of the smallest cells in the society the neighbourhood units. We have dedicated our work to their activation, and capacity building in order to become equal partners in the decision making on the local level.
Current and future perspectives
The society is moving towards the right direction in the process of establishing efficient public administration and local governance. We have set our priorities in the future for stimulating of different groups to take their part in the local policymaking having as cross-cutting theme the human rights throughout the program.
Support in strategic planning and management of the Local Self Governments– with our capacities in organizational development and strategic planning we are providing services to the Local Self Government Units in sector strategic planning (action plans for children, for climate changes etc.) project development and implementation, fundraising etc.