On the 19 August 2022, the completion of the six-year Civic Engagement Project was marked with the holding of a closing event. The main aim of this project was to encourage and promote dialogue between citizens and the government.
In more detail, the goal of the Civic Engagement Project was to strengthen CSOs and the capacity of young people to promote public policies, improve public services, promote good governance and contribute to improving the living standards of people in North Macedonia. The project was dedicated to gender equality and protection of the rights of socially excluded groups in Macedonia.
The event was addressed by the US Ambassador to the country, Kate Marie Burns, the vice president of the East-West Management Institute, Mark Dietrich and the deputy prime minister in charge of good governance policies, Slavica Grkovska.
The executive director of the Foundation for Internet and Society “Metamorphosis”, Bardhyl Jashari, also addressed the event. He spoke about the successes of the activities that “Metamorphosis” implemented within the project.
Jashari particularly highlighted the Openness Index at the local and executive level, which is conducted on a random sample of 50 state institutions and bodies, that is, on all 80 local government units plus the City of Skopje. In addition, he mentioned the monitoring of the Transparency Strategy, the support to state institutions and local governments in the process of opening data sets, the conducted trainings, mentoring processes, hackathons and consultations, as well as the importance of open data as a tool for improving the transparency and openness of government.
“Metamorphosis” Foundation had its representative in the second panel entitled “Youth involvement and civic initiatives”. Vaska Cvetanoska Panova spoke about the successes and achievements of the supported initiatives and indicated the most successful actions carried out by civil society organizations that were part of the project’s grant program.
Within the framework of the two components of the USAID Civic Engagement Project, Metamorphosis provided support to 16 civil society organizations that worked in the field of encouraging civic participation and activism, transparency and accountability of institutions.
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