Raising the Awareness About the Benefits of Open Government Partnership: (MK0042)

Raising the awareness about the benefits of Open Government Partnership:

III. Participation: Capacity Building for Civil Society Organisations

Commitment 1.5 Capacity Building For Civil Society

Commitment Text: .. 1.5. Capacity building of [CSOs] to monitor the implementation of policies.

Commitment 1.6 OGP Awareness Raising

Commitment Text: 1.6. Raising the awareness about the benefits of Open Government Partnership.

Commitment 4.8 Anti-Corruption Research and LOTOS Study

Commitment Text: 4.8. Building the capacity of [CSOs] to monitor anti-corruption practices at the local level through research and a LOTOS study.

Responsible institution(s): Ministry of Information Society and Administration (MISA)

Supporting institution(s): State Commission for Preventions of Corruption; Center for Research and Policy Making (CSO)

Start Date: 1/12/   End Date: 31/12/2016

Commitment aim

This cluster of commitments was designed to enhance civil society’s capacity to monitor policy making at both the national and local levels. It also focused on raising awareness of OGP and addressing the “demand” side of public policy, namely, the watchdog roles of civil society. Implementation was led by the Center for Research and Policy Making (CRPM), since the commitments were based on their program activities.

Status

Midterm

Commitment 1.5: Limited

Commitment 1.6: Limited

Commitment 4.8: Complete

CRPM reported that they improved the capacity of seven organisations to monitor implementation of policies in more than half the municipalities in Macedonia.^{[Note 33: Qendresa Sulejmani, Working Groups and the Implementation of the OGP Action Plan in the First Quarter (Skopje: CRPM, 2015), 10.]} Because this effort was small, the IRM researcher found limited implementation of the commitments in this cluster.

On the question of raising awareness of OGP (commitment 1.6), CRPM and the Ministry of Information Society and Administration (MISA) organised events under an EU-funded project. That is, CRPM supported and facilitated consultations for the development of the second national action plan, and held one regional conference on OGP in October 2014.

Commitment 4.8, building CSO capacity to monitor local anti-corruption activities, was completed. Seven civil society organisations published the LOTOS study jointly in 2015. The study found that the municipalities lacked good governance, scoring an average of 3.53 (out of 10). There was also a wide gap in governance, with the majority (53% of 43 municipalities) scoring below average.^{[Note 34: Marija Risteska and Aleksandar Cekov, Local Accountability, Transparency and Responsibility Study-LOTOS2014 (Skopje: Center for Research and Policy Making, 2015).]}

For more information, please see the 2014-2016 IRM midterm report.

End of term

Commitment 1.5: Substantial

Commitment 1.6: Substantial

CRPM has reported that, under commitment 1.5 (CSO capacity building to monitor policy implementation), monitoring of the implementation of CSOs’ recommendations, coupled with mentoring activities, have further strengthened the capacities of local CSOs. The seven trained researchers monitored policies in the 43 municipalities, which resulted in the publication of a study in May 2015. This study is publicly available. CRPM also reported that at least 29 municipalities^{[Note 35: This amounts to 67.4% of the monitored municipalities, or 35% of all municipalities.]} have implemented the recommendations to some extent, thus strengthening some aspects of their transparency, accountability, or responsiveness. For example, the Municipality of Bitola has started publishing its official gazettes from a closed jpg format into more searchable pdf formats. The project also contributed to the exchange of good practice. For example, service cards which provide information for accessing services and which are used by the Municipality of Kriva Palanka were adopted and implemented by the Municipality of Bogdanci. The IRM review has found that some of this improvement is sustained. For instance, while both the municipalities of Krusevo and Suto Orizari made their financial statements for 2013 public initially, only the latter continues to publish its financial statements. A limited number of CSOs were part of this commitment, but their work extended to one-third of the local communities. Hence, IRM has assessed this effort as substantial.

The government also reported substantial progress vis-a-vis commitment 1.6. MISA, along with the responsible institutions and CRPM, organised a variety of consultations to develop Macedonia’s third OGP national action plan. Three thematic workshops were held in March 2016, and attended by 110 stakeholders. This was followed by a conference with 97 participants, four additional thematic workshops in April, and an additional conference in May. In total, almost 500 stakeholders were reached,^{[Note 36: Copies of list of participants were made available to the IRM researcher.]} and commitments proposed by different stakeholders were included in the new action plan. This reflected the collaborative nature of the process. While the main purpose of these activities was to develop the third action plan, they also succeeded in raising awareness of OGP. Even though only one in three CSOs are familiar with OGP,^{[Note 37: CRPM, Survey Report, (Skopje: CRPM, 2016), 2.]} the IRM researcher considers the scope of the activities to be a substantial implementation of the commitment.

Did it open government?

Civic participation: Marginal

Public accountability: Did not change

This cluster of commitments focused on building CSO capacity. Their success can only be determined by CSOs’ ability to take part in and influence national and local decision making. Overall, there were dissonant effects, with minor improvement in CSO participation in national and local policy making, and major improvements in the development of the new OGP action plan. The third action plan reflects strong collaboration, as it includes ambitious commitments that are long-term priorities of civil society (e.g., access to information about government sessions).^{[Note 38: One of the milestones within the new measure 1.1. Improving the process of consultation with stakeholders the process of policy making is 1.1.5, “Publishing press release from held meetings of the government with adopted legislative proposals, decisions and other measures.”]} Moreover, the capacity building activities served to establish relationships between reform-oriented civil servants and other stakeholders in society.

Both state officials and civil society were satisfied with the quality of the interactions, the overall consultation process, and the decisions and measures included in the new OGP action plan. Although there were dissonant voices, both civil society and state officials noted a positive trend within OGP. However, the impact is limited to those civil actors and officials who were present at the meetings and who are involved directly in these processes. The positive trend has not influenced policy making at the national level, as the space for civil society there has decreased.^{[Note 39: Jovan Bliznakovski, Nations in Transit: Macedonia 2017 (Freedom House, 2017). ]} The IRM researcher thus considers this progress marginal, even though the positive example set by the OGP consultations can be used as a model for the future. 

The commitments aimed to increase public accountability through improved oversight by civil society. Nevertheless, limited efforts, as well as narrow implementation focused only on participation, did not lead to increased accountability of public officials or civil servants.

Carried forward?

The three commitments did not carry over to the third action plan, since they were completed or considered to be substantially completed. Participatory policy making is a priority in the new action plan, but capacity building of CSOs is not a goal of the new commitments.