Executive Summary
The project shall be action oriented and it will focus at the upgrade of the budgeting and public procurement practices in local communities of Serbia, enabling greater transparency and efficiency in use of public funds.
Partnership relations which have already been established with the local governments of three selected municipalities will enable effective implementation of the policy recommendations steaming up from the action research to be undertaken.
The project will create an impetus for a break-through effort in the field of improved budgeting process and increased transparency of public procurement among the members of the Association of Free Cities and Municipalities of Serbia.
Activities will be undertaken to educate public (local electorate) in a number of municipalities in Serbia on importance of effective budgeting and transparent public procurement in their respective community.
The intention is that three municipalities with which the European Movement in Serbia will be working, i.e. Nis, Kikinda and Cukarica are going to serve as models (pilot – municipalities) for the future, for the same kind of activities. The public administration of these three municipalities, where democrats are on power, will receive technical support from the experts of the European Movement in Serbia, in order to create clean and efficient local governments.
Activities in the project will encompass:
- technical assistance to the members of the Association of Free Cities and Municipalities based at the applied, action research;
- education of local public administration, creating the best practice cases with Nis, Kikinda and Cukarica; and
education of public by raising the issues of good governance in it’s essential part which is budgeting and public procurement.
The project will aim towards the activation of citizens and local authorities towards better governance, through preventing the corruption and increasing the efficient use of the existing, scarce resources.
It will prepare them for the eventual major reconstruction projects, which are presumably going to take place in Serbia after the shift towards democratic government, when the country would become eligible for the EU OBNOVA and CARA, World Bank, UNDP, USAID and other programs including funding, after the almost eight years of isolation from these sources of expertise and financial support, important for inter alia, reform of the public administration and economic development of the local communities.
Rising awareness and education of citizens would be the first step in the anti corruption campaign. It is necessary that citizens understand how corruption negatively affects their everyday life and how much it costs them. Furthermore, citizens have to learn what they have to do in order to reduce corruption and what use they will have from that action.
The project will be undertaken in close collaboration with local civil society in each of the three municipalities and in collaboration with Transparency International, which has specific experience to share with EMS on procurement and budgeting processes.
