Metamorphosis Foundation organized a discussion and workshop on the good governance situation with recommendations for its improvement, which was attended by representatives of several civil associations from the neighboring countries, the Visegrad Region countries and Macedonia as well.
During the discussion, the civil sector representatives evaluated the current good governance situation or the inclusion of the citizens in the decision-making process in RM, shared their experience, good practices and proposed ways for future improvement of good governance mechanisms with focus of successful ICT tools that have proven as most practical and most useful.
The participants draw a conclusion that there are plenty of instruments and mechanisms with which the citizens and CSOs can participate in and can contribute towards good governance, but they are not using them because they do not know that these tools actually exist, and also they are not given enough time to use them.
Bardhyl Jashari, director of Metamorphosis Foundation says that the Action Visegrad SEE project will contribute towards making the citizens’ voice stronger and more transparent, via the new technologies, and will also contribute towards making the state institutions more accountable, so the democracy can be strengthened. 
“The citizens are cut off from the decision-making process. NGOs should inspire the citizens to use the instruments and tools, but the state institutions ought to show good will. In Macedonia, there is a tendency of decrease of citizens’ confidence in the institutions, however, we have reasons to be optimists because the countries included in this project have European perspective”, Jashari says, who also added that the Macedonian state institutions are currently too closed.
Gordana Dimitrovska, from the Ministry of Information Society and Administration, pointed out that the ongoing reform in the public administration should lay the foundations in order to intercept the challenges of the good governance.
“We acknowledge the mass inclusion of CSOs in the third National Action Plan for open governmental partnership. More than 490 organizations are included, and we have implemented more than 100 measures”, Dimitrovska says.
Besides Jashari and Dimitrovska, the discussion was attended by Visar Shehu from ICT4Changes; Michal Skop from Kohovolit, Czech Republic; Ivana Savic from CRTA, Serbia; Damir Neziri from Westminster Foundation for Democracy; Filip Chaparoski from the National Democratic Institute; Qendresa Sulejmani from the Center for Research and Policy Making; Natali Petrovska from the Coalition All for Fair Trials; and Boris Brkan from Zashto Ne, Bosnia and Herzegovina.
This event is part of the ACTION VISEGRAD SEE project, whose objective is to promote a dynamic civil society that effectively mobilizes citizens for active engagement on good governance issues within the context of EU accession, and influences policy and decision-making processes at national and regional level in Western Balkans.
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