On June 10th, 2016 one of the partner organizations in ACTION SEE project, MJAFT! Movement gathered its local partner civil society organizations (CSO) and local self-government representatives at the inception workshop in Tirana, Albania to discuss about issues and challenges of law, good governance and public administration reform. Participants included CSOs and Media representatives.

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Engaged in advocacy for higher transparency, accountability and openness in decision making and budgeting in their local communities, partner CSO representatives shared information and exchanged experiences in dealing with public administration and local government institutions.

The general conclusion of CSO partners referred to the lack of openness of public administration to the initiatives of civil society, due to the extremely low understanding of the benefits of civic participation in decision making from the side of local authorities. Representatives of BIRN Albania, Kristina Voko, has considered worrisome the problem of transparency of public institutions.

Mrs. Voko brought examples from her daily work where the requested information is not made public or available by authorities. Representatives of CSOs suggested doing more about transparency in public institutions, in order to deal with other issues.

Ms. Mirela Arqimandriti, representative of the Coalition for Free and Fair Election and Sustainable Democracy, offered its cooperation and suggested to have a solid technology to measure indicators.

Ms. Englantina Alliaj, journalist and representative of News 24, proposed that the CSOs should use simple terms to introduce their findings, because the available time of traditional media’ chronic in Albania is too short.

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ACTION SEE – Accountability, Technology and Institutional Openness Network in SEE project is implemented by the Metamorphosis Foundation, in partnership with the Westminster Foundation for Democracy from Great Britain, Center for Research, Transparency and Accountability (CRTA) from Serbia, Citizens Association Why not? from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Center for Democratic Transition (CDT) from Montenegro, Open Data Kosovo (ODK) from Kosovo and Lëvizja Mjaft! from Albania.

The project’s aim is to increase the inclusion of civil society and media organizations in creating public opinion, the policy creation process and in the participation in the mechanisms of the decision-making processes as well as to raise the capacity of civil societies to address sensitive issues.

This project is implemented with the financial support of the European Union.

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