PASOS and seven members of the network have launched a two-year project to encourage governments in the Western Balkans to become more transparent.

“Advocacy for Open Government: Civil society agenda-setting and monitoring of country action plans” targets governments in Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro, and Serbia. The project is being funded by the European Union.

Project objective
Through a common methodology addressing a common framework for open government, the project will include expert training of civil society in the methodology for shaping Open Governance Partnership (OGP) commitments country by country, training of civil society organisations based in advocacy, monitoring, and policy analysis. The project will monitor the impact of government polices, and will develop commitments for governments to make under the OGP Initiative. A mapping of government policy and capacity will be carried out for all six countries, with a view to developing policy-relevant country action plans advocating open government and integrity to address the five challenges around which the OGP commitments are structured. The project will draw on experience from new EU members, critique commitments, and draw up advocacy plans for monitoring achievements in open government.

Country coverage
Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia

Expected project outcomes
• Clear action plans and commitments under the OGP initiative, and legislation and reforms of procedures in line with the acquis communautaire. This will be achieved through advocacy and engagement with governments to make government more efficient and more transparent. It will include legislation and procedures on freedom of information, data protection, public procurement, procedures for dealing with public inquiries about information.

• Improved professional standards of handling and processing data in public institutions, including codes of conduct concerning both privacy and open governance – for public officials, politicians, and the private sector.

• The lessons learned and successes in each country (combined with news and social media dissemination) will be evaluated continuously to enable replication in the other countries where appropriate.

Partners
Institute for Democracy and Mediation (Albania), Analitika Center for Social Research (Bosnia and Herzegovina), Riinvest Institute for Development Research (Kosovo), Center for Research and Policy Making (Macedonia), Center for Democracy and Human Rights (Montenegro), The Monitoring Center CEMI (Montenegro), and Center for Euro-Atlantic Studies (Serbia).

Project activities
1. Mapping of government policies in 5 OGP areas: improving public services; increasing public integrity; more effectively managing public resources; creating safer communities; increasing corporate accountability. Output: clear stakeholder and context analysis, and comparative assessment of challenges in terms of open governance in each policy area for each country.

2. Opinion poll on trust in government.

3. Needs analysis of CSO capacity to monitor implementation, and CSO environment, e.g. legal framework and access to policymakers.

4. Development of methodology for designing commitments and action plans, monitoring implementation, and setting advocacy goals.

5. Launch project websites (common website and six country websites)

6. Public debates and meetings with government officials to design/critique OGP commitments, and country action plans

7. Training on building CSO capacity in each country; finalise advocacy plans to promote commitments and monitor implementation.

8. Monitor implementation, and conduct advocacy with country reports: public debates, campaigns.

9. Final opinion poll on trust in government.

10. Final partners’ meeting (location to be determined by DG Enlargement), including evaluation of project and plans for follow-up, continued monitoring country-by-country.

Project Updates:

PASOS kicks off ‘Advocacy for Open Government’ project

“Advocacy for Open Government’ Facebook launched

GOOD GOVERNANCE POLICY AREA (CRPM)

The ‘P’ in Open Governance Partnership (CEAS)

Advocacy for Open Government Supporting the Right to Know in Southeast Europe (Riinvest Institute)

Regional Project: Advocacy for Open Government (CEDEM)

Project Materials:

PDF file with details about the project and partners

PowerPoint presented at IPA Civil Society projects kick-off meeting
Brussels, 21 January 2013

News source

Ignoring demands from Kyiv city officials that they not display a group of political cartoons in public, members of the Institute for World Policy (IWP) held an exhibition of the images on May 18, the day Ukraine marks Europe Day.

The officials had demanded that IWP remove from the exhibition 13 cartoons that dealt with such topics as corruption, selective justice, and politics as business, the IWP said. The full exhibit was held in Mykhailivska Square, in central Kyiv.

The effort to censor the images drew protests from demonstrators who attended a Europe Day speech delivered by Oleksandr Popov, head of the Kyiv City State Administration.

Protesters released white balloons emblazoned with words describing Ukraine’s political and social ills, and then turned their backs to Popov when he spoke. IWP said Popov’s office had approved the exhibition, then reneged on the permissions.

“Negotiations with the Kyiv administration lasted for about a month and the permission was signed by Popov,” said IWP Director Alyona Getmanchuk. “However, five days before the campaign we received an ultimatum stating that either we postpone the exhibition for indefinite period, or to display the pictures elsewhere. In addition, outright censorship of art was put as another requirement.”

The institute described the exhibition as part of an on-going series called “Street Eurouniversity,” events where public leaders and experts have an opportunity to directly communicate with citizens. The Delegation of the European Union to Ukraine has supported the campaign, and had sent Popov’s office a letter endorsing the project.

“Kyiv officials did not even consider that ambassadors of the European Union member-states were invited to the exhibition, and that action was to take place on Europe Day,” said Victor Shlinchak, head of IWP’s board of directors.

News source: Belgrade Center for Security Policy, Serbia

An increasing number of people in the Western Balkans turn to independent state institutions for protection from members of the security sector who abuse their powers, according to panelists at an April 17 conference organized by the Belgrade Center for Security Policy (BCSP).

“How successful independent state institutions are in control of the security sector in the Western Balkans” was held to to promote the regional survey.

The number of independent institution recommendations is increasing, as is the level of their respect, but none of these institutions have a way of enforcing their recommendations, the report concludes.

In the first panel, Arjan Dyrmishi, senior researcher at fellow PASOS member Institute for Democracy and Mediation (IDM), presented ​​a “Comparative analysis of case studies of Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Croatia, Kosovo, Macedonia and Serbia,” based on the analysis of trends in individual studies conducted by seven organizations from the Western Balkans. The main findings of the survey were presented by representatives of think tanks in those countries.

The panelists said that the monitoring of public procurement and spending money in the armed forces, police and security/intelligence agencies is no longer a “mission impossible,” even though the time when this type of supervision will become a regular practice is still far away. According to the panelists, there is a gap between legal provisions which prescribe jurisdiction of independent state institutions and their effective implementation. In some countries, including Serbia, certain groups remain beyond the reach of independent state institutions control, they said.

In the second panel, which was moderated by Chairman of the BCSP Board Miroslav Hadžić, Serbian Commissioner for Information of Public Importance and Personal Data Protection Rodoljub Šabić said the good news is that an increasing number of citizens are turning to independent institutions, confirming the awareness of citizens that they have certain rights, including the right to control the government.

Sabić also said that these good results are confirmed by the statistics; there are thousands of people who turn to the commissioner or state ombudsman for help, resulting in a high percentage of successful interventions.

The conference was part of the regional project Building capacities of civil society for mapping and monitoring security sector reforms in the Western Balkans. BCSP  undertook the project together with its partners: IDM from Albania, the Center for Democracy and Human Rights from Montenegro, Analitica from Macedonia, the Center for Security Studies from Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Institute for Development and International Relations from Croatia and the Kosovar Center for Security Studies.

Attendees included representatives of the international community, diplomats and researchers, and national and regional media, as well as Serbian lawmakers and independent state bodies.

The Geneva Center for the Democratic Control of Armed Forces and the Balkan Trust for Democracy supported the project.

News source:

NGOs need to improve how to they communicate with governments if they want policymakers to prioritize gender equality issues, according to governmental representatives who attended the Regional Dialogue on Gender and Security, an April 25-26 conference organized by three PASOS members. At the same time, they said, governments need to learn how to use the resources that NGOs can offer.

NGOs have been a leading force in advancing the implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 1325 on gender equality in the Balkans, said an attendee from Bosnia and Herzegovina. The legal framework exists, including the Gender Equality Act, the Anti-discrimination Act, and laws for fighting gender based violence. However, Balkan countries are currently at different stages of implementing these laws.

Female representation in institutions across the region is improving in terms of numbers, according to the attendees. For example, women hold around 30% of parliament seats in the region, which is a recent improvement. However, the participants acknowledged that their most challenging priority is encouraging female participation beyond quotas.

The dialogue identified two other main priorities going forward: incorporating a gender perspective in security legislation that goes beyond mere formalities, and strengthening cooperation and communication within the network of regional CSOs working on gender issues.

Ivana Radović, coordinator of the Prevention and Education Program for Anti-trafficking Action (ASTRA) from Belgrade, pointed out that the most important factor for maintaining good cooperation through an initiative is the strong will of the parties to stay involved. “When the network is designed as a project activity, it fails when the project ends,” Radović said.

The Belgrade Center for Security Policy (Belgrade), the Center for Research and Policy Making (Skopje) and the Institute for Democracy and Mediation (Tirana) teamed up with the Kosovar Center for Security Studies and Women to Women for the conference, which gathered 47 representatives from state agencies, government equality bodies, local NGOs and international organizations from Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Macedonia, and Serbia. The event was supported by UN WOMEN.

News source:

Experts at the Center for Economic and Social Development (CESD) estimate that the amount of remittances sent from Russia to Azerbaijan is much higher than that reported by official sources.

$1.139 billion was transferred from Russia to Azerbaijan in 2012, according to the Central Bank of Russia. “The central bank data, in fact, significantly underestimate actual remittance inflows,” CESD said. “This is mostly due to people sending via money transfer operators, therefore Central Bank of Russia inflows to Azerbaijan are 23% greater than the total amount of remittance inflows reported by the State Statistic Committee of Azerbaijan.

According to Russian mass media, the amount of remittances from Russia to Azerbaijan is about $3.5 billion. The Azerbaijan State Statistic Committee reported the amount of remittances as $900 million. A CESD survey, however, found that the amount of remittances from Russia to Azerbaijan is at least three times higher that the Central Bank reported amount. “That means that the amount of remittances is no less than $3 billion per year,” according to CESD.

CESD says that although remittances keep many families out of poverty, they are the hidden economy of Azerbaijan; there is no official accurate calculation. Preliminary data indicate that remittance outflows from Russia increased of 25% in 2012. This shows a strong recovery after a decline in 2009, but remittances sent from Russia do still not reach the pre-crisis levels of 2008.

According to CESD experts, money is remitted from Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan to Azerbaijan, as well. In general, the Azerbaijanis of the CIS countries annually transfer $5 billion to their home country. Meanwhile, about $1.5 billion in remittances come from European Union countries and Turkey.