About LOTOS

Local Transparency and Accountability Study (LOTOS)

EXCHANGE OF EU BEST PRACTICES IN THE AREA OF ANTICORRUPTION MONITORING ON LOCAL LEVEL

Context:

Good governance means competent management of the resources in the country on transparent, open, equal and citizen’s responsive way. This means absence of any abuse or corruption, but full application of the rule of law. Several recent studies showed that in Macedonia most of the principles of good governance are integrated in the legislative framework but there are significant implementation gaps between what laws regulate and how they are implemented and enforced. Good governance and especially open government have been one of the priority areas for reform of the country as it recently committed to the Global Open Government Initiative. The Macedonian Government adopted an Action Plan to Open Government which aims to build capacities and partnerships for decision making in transparent, open, equal and citizen’s responsive way.

In addition, and under the framework of country’s European integration, Republic of Macedonia has publicly expressed political will/commitment to fight corruption and in the past period developed comprehensive anticorruption legal framework under which the anti-corruption institutional framework was build. The State commission for prevention of corruption is the main body that implements the Anticorruption strategy in the country, but also E-government is promoted as a tool to increase transparency and prevent petty corruption. So far, citizens are considered partners of government in fight against bribery in the public sector. Their potential to be individually or through intermediaries, CSOs, watchdog on all type of corruption practices, not exclusive to bribery, has not yet been utilized. Citizens do not have tradition to monitor and hold government accountable. Although the Anticorruption strategy envisages work with the civil society and media, strengthening of civil society organizations to act as partners of government in fight against corruption has not occurred. The Transparency International office in Skopje works on country level regularly measuring the perception of Macedonian citizens on corruption, but does not monitor, nor provides data and analysis for anticorruption in the country. No other organization on municipal level works on anticorruption. As a result institutional cooperation between CSOs and local governments in the area of anticorruption has not been developed.

THE PROJECT

The overall objective of the action is to foster anticorruption and good governance practices at local level that will enable sustainable environment for social, economic and environmental development.

Hence, increasing the capacities for anticorruption monitoring at local level among the citizens and the civil sector in particular is envisioned to be one of the main preconditions for achieving the general objective.

The activities are inspired from the Croatian experience in strengthening civil society to be active watchdog of the transparency and accountability principles of the local government and the notion that active and aware citizens are the basis for transparent and corruption-free government. For this purpose, the project consortium consists of 8 CSOs, each working in and representing one of the regions in the country. In addition, it includes other relevant stakeholders, such as the Unit of Local Self-governments and the national anticorruption bodies, which are of crucial importance when it comes to implementing more efficient transparency and accountability policies in the country.

Primarily, in order to raise the level of awareness and specific knowledge of the civil sector and the local and national stakeholders, the initial project activity would be a study visit in Croatia (NGO GONG) where representatives of watchdog organizations, the Unit of Local Self-governments and the national anticorruption bodies are going to be acquainted with the methodology for monitoring anticorruption practices and the methodology for development of the Local Transparency and Accountability Study (LOTOS). In addition, each local watchdog organization is going to undergo a custom-developed training on anticorruption monitoring by the lead organization accompanied with a continuous mentoring support throughout their research and monitoring activities. Finally, a regional conference (for 100 participants) is going to be organized as a finale of the capacity building activities, encompassing the experiences of several EU countries in the anticorruption monitoring on local level.

In addition to the capacity building component, the project has an analytical component whose aim is to leave behind an analytical document (Local Transparency and Accountability Study –LOTOS) on the transparency and accountability policies of 26 pilot-municipalities. Each local partner organization (watchdog organization) is going to be responsible for data collection in the areas they cover, according to the methodology developed in cooperation with the Croatian partners. The LOTOS report will be printed in 500 copies, promoted and disseminated among stakeholders, as an advocacy tool with at least 10 specific recommendations for more efficient anticorruption policies.

Throughout the project life, continuous awareness raising and visibility activities will be implemented for the aim of enhancing the awareness of the general public on the importance of transparency and accountability monitoring of the local government and specific methods which citizens could employ. For this purpose, an awareness raising campaign will be developed, accompanied with a separate dissemination plan for each of the eight regions. Additionally, close cooperation with the media will be established from the beginning of the project, in order to enable presence of the project message, activities and results in both printed media (through 4 op-eds), electronic media (1 radio show and 3 talk show discussions) and online media (36 web uploads).

Anticorruption-info

Проект: РАЗМЕНА НА НАЈДОБРИ ЕУ ПРАКТИКИ ВО СЛЕДЕЊЕ НА АНТИКОРУПТИВНИ МЕРКИ НА ЛОКАЛНО НИВО

Главната цел на овој проект е да се промовираат и поттикнат практиките за антикорупција и добро владеење на локално ниво, што ќе обезбеди одржлива средина за социјален, економски и еколошки развој.

Зајакнувањето на капацитетит е на граѓаните и граѓанскиот сектор за мониторинг на антикоруптивните практики на локално ниво е предвидено да биде еден од главните предуслови за постигнување на општата цел.

Активностите се инспирирани од хрватското искуство во зајакнување на граѓанското општество да биде активен чувар на принципите за транспарентност и одговорност на локалната самоуправа и фактот дека активни и свесни граѓани се основа за транспарентна влада и влада без корупција