The project “Improving Governance – Empowering Civil Society” aims to provide support to the government of Kosovo in strengthening capacities, drafting policy documents and establishing mechanisms necessary for the further operationalization and implementation of the Government Strategy for Cooperation with Civil Society in that country.
It will also contribute to build an effective system for public financial support to civil society organisations and to promote greater involvement and participation of organizations in the development and implementation of legislation and standards in this area.
The project is part of the wider endeavour of the EU Civil Society Facility instrument in the framework of the EU integration process in the Western Balkans and Turkey.
It aims to strengthen participatory democracies and the EU integration process by empowering civil society to take part in decision making process by stimulating an enabling legal and financial environment for civil society and pluralistic media.
The project falls within the scope of the Government Strategy for Cooperation with Civil Society which seeks to promote a more enabling environment for civil society development.
It also foresees a greater facilitation of access to official documents and information, to promote the involvement of citizens in policy-making and achieve greater depth in providing services from civil society organizations.
The Cooperation Strategy was built, in this context, on a dialogue based approach which recognises the independence of civil society sector in their contribution to raise a democratic society.
For such, the project will promote public consultations by developing tools to inform civil society in open consultations and, also, the diversification and use of online and offline consultation methods for such consultations.
In order to improve and to ensure the correct application of minimum standards for public consultations, and to strengthen the capacity of government structures to answer to this challenges, the project focuses on a specific set of activities, among which stand out:
- Designing and implementing the training programme for civil servants;
- in conjunction with the training program, public consultation meetings will be organized dedicated to the discussion of the selected projects and legal measures underway (laws, regulations, among others);
- supporting the upgrade and effective use of online platform for identifying stakeholders for public consultations;
- developing technical specifications for “e-consultations” - central government internet platform for public consultations;
- to build an effective system for public financial support to civil society organisations.
For the formulation of a regulation on the criteria, the project will also provide standards and procedures for public financial support to civil society organisations, the identification of priorities programs and projects funding, the development of a database on the Internet for proactive publishing of all data on grants from State budget to those organizations.
It will last 2 years and is managed by the Delegation of the European Union in Kosovo and implemented by WYG International in consortium with CESO Development Consultants.
June 2016