The second round of measuring the openness, accountability and transparency of governments and state institutions in six countries from the region, conducted within the ACTION SEE – Accountability, Technology and Institutional Openness Network in SEE project, implemented by the Metamorphosis Foundation in partnership with other partner organizations from the region, begins today.

Questionnaires have been sent to multiple courts, the Administrative Court, Judicial Council of the RM, Supreme Court of the RM, State Prosecution Office, line ministries, Government of the RM, Public Procurement Bureau, as well as numerous executive agencies and bodies with the aim to monitor the institutional openness and accountability. These questionnaires are identical for all countries in the region, in order to methodologically achieve regional comparative measuring.

The Regional Openness Index is a composite indicator that determines the openness level of Western Balkans governments toward citizens and society, and has been created in order to define the extent to which Western Balkans citizens receive opportune and understandable information from the institutions.

To measure the level of institutional openness, the ACTION SEE partners, following the international standards, recommendations and good practice examples, assess the institutions using specific quantitative and qualitative indicators, such as: access to information on institutions’ official websites, legal framework’s quality in individual cases, other sources of public informing, published data regarding the work of institutions, public procurements, information on spending of public money, etc.

The Roadmap on Good Governance, which covers the main conclusions on openness of institutions as well as concrete recommendations and steps for improving the openness thereof, was prepared on the basis of the first round of measuring carried out in 2016.

The analysis of the openness of local self-government in Macedonia and the region, available for download at the Metamorphosis Foundation website, showed that municipalities in the Republic of Macedonia have a score of 34% under the index on openness. Snap27

State Prosecution Office’s openness amounts 51%, whereas courts in the Republic of Macedonia have scored 52% under the openness indicators. The Judicial Council has insignificantly better score of 58% under the indicators on openness.

Project’s aim is to increase the inclusion of civic society and media organizations in decision-making processes and the creation of public opinion and policies, as well as to raise the capacity of civic society to address sensitive issues.

ACTION SEE – Accountability, Technology and Institutional Openness Network in SEE project is financed by the European Union and is implemented by Metamorphosis Foundation, Westminster Foundation for Democracy, CRTA – Center for Research, Transparency and Accountability, Citizens Association Why not?, Center for Democratic Transition, Open Data Kosovo (ODK) and Levizja Mjaft!.

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