New ways of practicing democracy

Forums in the communities

The citizens of Kicevo, Prilep and the municipality of Gjorce Petrov in Skopje have started practicing local democracy via the so-called Forums in the Communities. At the Forums, the citizens determined their priorities for developing their municipalities and decided which projects will be financed. The financial help for implementing the projects that were chosen by the citizens and that will be realized with their participation, will be financed by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation with a budget of 120 000 euros; additional 25% will be provided by the municipality budgets and 15% by the project carriers in each municipality.

The programme “Forums in the Communities” is implemented by the Foundation Open Society Institute – Macedonia and the Center for Institutional Development in cooperation with ZELS. .

On 17 April 2007, a conference of the programme “Forums in the Communities” took place in Skopje. Participants were over 80 representatives from the municipalities, the central authority, international organizations in Macedonia, the civil sector and the media. They presented their experiences regarding the so-far implementation of the programme whose goal is to support the development of the municipalities by providing citizens participation in the decision making processes. The presentation of Mr. Dilijan Enkin, the Mayor of Troyan Municipality in Bulgaria aroused a special interest among the present. He spoke about the experience of his municipality in the implementation of a similar programme.

 

M.I.