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Regional NGO conference in Ohrid
The legal framework – satisfactory, the implementation – slow
Experiences on problems regarding the decentralization, the poverty reduction and the local economic development were shared by a hundred NGO representatives, the media, the business-sector and experts from Macedonia, Serbia and Kosovo – participants at the regional conference that took place for 6 to 9 July in Ohrid. They said that the region is making progress in the above-mentioned areas regarding its adjustment to the European legislation, though the implementation of it is far from satisfactory.
According to the NGO representatives, the slow progress of the region is due to the corruption, the citizens’ centralized awareness, the political manipulations, and quite often, they blamed it on the Balkan mentality.
“We must fight the manipulation with the poverty in the political parties’ campaigns, we need to animate the business-sector, which, for now, is completely turned to making profit; the civil society organizations need to lobby more with the government institutions. When all actors of our social living truly stand for the goal of reducing the poverty , we can hope not to have absurd situations like taxation of the humanitarian aid in Serbia”, said Milan Mladenovikj from the Education Centre in Leskovac.
The reintegration of the displaced was also emphasized as a significant problem.
“The returnees are fighting a number of problems: they lack documents, have lost their homes and properties, are hard to find jobs and are hard to re-socialize in the environment they come from. Practically, they do not return in the place they came from, since the proportion between the ethnic communities in those places has changed, making the return a shocking experience just as leaving the place had been before”, said Elena Manikj from the Serbian United Nations Association.
This Conference has marked the termination of the project “Building Civil Society Capacities in Serbia, Kosovo and Macedonia”, which was being realized in the region in the last 18 months. The Institute for Sociologic and Political Legal Researches and the civic organization SUNA were the Macedonian participants in the project.
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