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Belgrade Open School with the support of “Europe for Citizens” Programme of the European Union implements the project “YOU4EU – Citizen Participation 2.0”. The aim of the project is to encourage citizens in Europe to take part in decision and policy - making processes.

Citizen participation in decision and policy - making processes is one of the main pillars of democracy and democratic culture in societies where citizens have power to be agents of change and have right to take part in debates about problems that occur in societies and take decisions on policies of public interest.

Thus, this project is designed to motivate citizens to participate in dialogues with stakeholders at both EU and national level.

The project is following up the positive momentum of revived debate over the future of the EU initialized in 2017 and important events, such as Brexit, 2019 European Parliament elections and published Strategy for credible enlargement perspective for the Western Balkans countries.

The Project activities will help citizens to grasp ideas and think about possible scenarios of the EU future presented in the European Commission’s White paper on the future of Europe. Facilitation of direct contacts between citizens and decision makers that will take place during this Project will also encourage citizens to express their own concerns over particular problems and define the issues which should enrich, shape and strengthen the EU agenda in the upcoming period. Together with this the project activities will provide the opportunity to citizens to challenge and discuss presented EU agendas and articulate criticism over the concrete EU activities and results.

The You4EU project activities will be implemented in 9 Member States and 2 Candidate Countries, directly underpinning citizens’ actions and decision making on European challenges of mutual concern, which is citizen-oriented, inclusive, forward-looking and constructive. Having this in mind the important aspect of this project is to enable peer exchange between Member States and Candidate Countries in many areas.

The project will use and support the enhancement of new media and new channels of communication in order to raise interest and include young people in abovementioned processes.

The project's priorities are to encourage citizens to engage in active dialogue on the future of Europe and to review mechanisms to counter the rising Euro-skepticism in, and outside the European Union.

General aim of the project is to shift the position of European citizens from passive actors to agents of change.

Specific aims of the project are to:

  • Shift position of European citizens from passive actors to agents of change, empowered and encouraged for democratic and civic participation at the Union level;
  • Develop understanding of citizens’ role and possible impact in the EU policy making process;
  • Enrich civic debate and e-participation of citizens on key developmental policies of the EU;
  • Enable exchange of experience between EU Member and Candidate Countries.

The project consists of interrelated set of activities which enable: a) direct contacts between citizens and decision makers for discussing contemporary challenges and perspectives of EU policies from citizens’ point of view; b) Europe-wide research on the citizens opinion over the future EU agenda; c) transnational multi-stakeholder debates on how to use concrete EU achievements and benefits in order to reinforce the EU's social and political cohesion, and d) development of innovative instruments for direct participation in decision making for citizens by citizens.

Expected results:

  • European citizens empowered and motivated to lead debates;
  • Developed recommendations for improvement of particular aspects of EU policies;
  • Broadened potential impact of individual initiatives;
  • Increased pull of knowledge, know-how and good practice for combating Euroscepticism.

Project activities are going to be implemented in four phases:

  1. INCEPTION PHASE: Partners will start preparatory activities at the project with program development, setting a research methodology, action and communication plan, clarification of responsibilities, finance and administration rules, expected deliverables and deadlines, thematic focus of the contest and multi-stakeholder debates.
  2. RESEARCH PHASE: Project partners are going to collect citizens’ questions through social networks and various online platforms, which is going to result in creating survey and policy analysis consisted of 50 key questions. This policy analysis is going to be presented to stakeholders of interest at the EU level.
  3. ENGAGE PHASE: With intention to condense a gap in communication between policy makers and citizens, which leads to lack of trust and civic engagement, partnering organizations will organize online contest for proposing of  innovative e-tool which has the aim to improve inclusion of citizens in decision making process and debating future development of the EU. Contest Citizens Participation 2.0 c will be organized on a pan European level covering both EU and non EU Member States as a wide polygon for creating innovative mechanisms for direct communication and participation in policy making.
  4. DEBATE PHASE: Project will invite citizens to act together and debate within framework of multi-stakeholder debates. Events will be organized in 4 participating countries: Slovenia, Croatia, Montenegro and Serbia. Topic of each of the debate will be based on inputs from direct contacts between citizens and decision makers, policy analysis and transnational recommendations for improvement of citizens` participation.

Four partners are included in project implementation: Belgrade Open School from Serbia, Institute Alternative from Montenegro, GONG from Croatia, PiNA from Slovenia and Access Info Europe from Spain. Project will directly include between 700 and 800 participants. Indirectly, around 370.000 citizens will be included and informed about the results of the project.

The Project is going to be implemented during the period of 18 months, from 1st of September 2018 until 29th of February 2020.

Europe for Citizens

The WEB4YES project is a regional initiative aimed at empowering civil society organizations to participate in decision making and advocacy for changes in youth employment policies in 6 Western Balkan countries. Within the project, it is planned to establish national and regional forums on the topic of employment, employability, and entrepreneurship of youth; training on policy advocacy methods; financial support program for civil society organizations; as well as designing and launching an Internet platform for easier job search for young people in the region.

The project coordinator is Belgrade Open School, and partners on the project are Association for Democratic Prosperity – ZID (Montenegro), NGO Lens (Kosovo), Beyond Barriers Association (Albania), Institute for Youth Development - KULT (Bosnia and Herzegovina), National Youth Council of Macedonia and the International Center Olof Palme (Sweden).

The WEB4YES project is supported by the European Commission, and all project activities will be implemented in the period from 23.12.2017. until 23.12.2020.

The project aimed to provide the conditions for creating a sustainable framework for organizing workers in enterprises that is based on the protection and promotion of rights related to the work, consultative process and workers' participation in the creation of company policy in Serbia. The existing practical, political and legal framework in Serbia is not sufficiently utilized when it comes to improving the position of workers in enterprises. A large number of workers in companies in Serbia are outside the system of trade union organization. It is necessary to use the existing opportunities and to improve the existing frameworks (strategic and legal) for the protection and promotion of work-related rights, as well as for more effective labor participation in the creation of company policy in Serbia. Employee Councils (Workers' Councils) are one of the mechanisms for achieving these goals. 

The specific objective of the project:

Improving the practical and political framework for the establishment of the Council of Employees (Workers' Councils) in Serbia.

The project consisted of the following activities:

  1. Preparing a policy paper for the establishment and functioning of the Employee Councils in enterprises;
    • Mentoring program;
    • Organizing and executing of 2 consulting workshops;
  2. Informing and familiarizing stakeholders with the concept of Employee Councils;
    • Organizing and executing 4 round tables.

 

The project was implemented in the period from March 1, 2014, to November 31, 2016.

Civil society organizations involved in the project (i.e. representative trade unions dealing with work-related and labor-related issues and CSOs dealing with youth employability issues) do not have enough capacity to strategically approach the process of public advocacy of specific solutions for the improvement of individual public policies, which are based on research and evidence, transparency and accountability of the authorities in the decision-making process for the improvement of these public policies, but also on the inclusion of civil society agents in this process. In the process of creating public policies in Serbia, there is a lack of pluralism in the solutions that will enable more efficient problem resolution and a more transparent decision-making process.

Project objective:

Establishing a transparent, inclusive and accountable policy-making process in Serbia.

Empowering civil society organizations to publicly advocate practical-political issues, based on evidence, transparency and inclusiveness in decision-making.

Activities:

  1. Mentorship in policy-making process with specific recommendations for improving public policies;
  2. Mentorship in creating strategic frameworks for public advocacy campaigns for applying the recommendations from their policy papers;
  3. Mentoring and overseeing the implementation of the advocacy campaign.

 


The P4OCD project is running from March 1, 2014. This is the third phase of the implementation of projects supporting 10 civil society organizations in the field of policy-making and implementation. The project is supported by Solidar Suisse Serbia.

The "Civil Society for Open Data at the local level" initiative is a continuation of the activities of the Belgrade Open School (BOS) in advocacy for redesign of information booklets and publishing of information booklets in a machine readable open data format. The Initiative is part of the “Open Data - Open Opportunities” project implemented by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP). The initiative is going to be implemented in a period from 1 July by 31 December 2017.

The goal of the initiative is to strengthen local communities for the use of open data in order to improve the lives of citizens. The Initiative is particularly focused on the development of digital information booklets in selected local governments, which at the same time represent pilots for utilization of the application for the development of open data information booklets. Also, the initiative encourages utilization of generated open data sets from information booklets by local civil society organizations.

The final outcome of the project will be several successful case studies of open data utilization at the local level.

The Belgrade Open School (BOS), together with the Center for Research, Transparency and Accountability (CRTA), provides mentoring and support to civil society, through activities implemented by UNDP.

From September 2014 to August 2016, the Belgrade Open School was a partner in the Policy Bridging Initiative project, implemented by the International Center for Policy Advocacy (ICPA) within the Regional Research Promotion Program (RRPP) for the Western Balkans, financed and implemented by the University of Freiburg, Switzerland.

Policy Bridging Initiative is an initiative that seeks to train and empower grantees, research organizations, and institutions involved in the RRPP program to advocate more clearly for the policy capacities of their projects. Namely, the RRPP headquarters in Switzerland wanted to improve the advocacy affinities of organizations and institutions whose projects have been supported in the period 2014-2016. In order to do this, they hired coaching experts from the ICPA to additionally train the RRPP Fund grantees through training, consultation and written comments on policy papers, as well as to reduce the academic approach within their projects and focus on advocating specific recommendations for the activities of policymakers.

As a result of many years of cooperation and engagement in the same field, BOS was hired by ICPA as a co-partner in the implementation of this project. Through the Policy Bridging Initiative, ICPA and BOS have strengthened the capacities of 63 institutions/organizations from Macedonia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Albania, Kosovo and Serbia to implement 21 regional projects. The project has been implemented from September 2014 to August 2016.

The objective of the "Local Transparency Booster" project has been to improve the transparency of the work of the local self-government units in Serbia, as well as to increase the capacity of local civil society organizations to collect and use information generated in the work of their local self-governments. The project has lasted for 18 months, from December 2014 to May 2016.

The project included research on the transparency of the work of all local self-governments in Serbia by monitoring their internet presentations and analyzing the availability of relevant documents developed within their activities. In this way, an insight into the current state of affairs was made, as well as the foundations for improving the services of local self-governments for the citizens. Local self-government units were empowered to develop new, but also to strengthen the existing mechanisms for a transparent and accountable approach in their work.

The second part of the project included training "We Have Something Against Corruption", which involved the strengthening of 50 civil society organizations for advocacy and monitoring of transparency and the fight against corruption at the local level. Empowered, these organizations have networked with the goal of combating corruption and creating a more inclusive environment for citizens and their initiatives regarding the improvement of the work of local self-governments.

Within the project, the Small Grants Support Program was implemented through which the following projects were supported: "Strengthening Transparency of Local Authorities: Secanj Fit for the Citizens", implemented by the "Power of the Word" association from Secanj; "Do You Know You Have the Right to Know" implemented by the “Mali Zvornik Municipal Council” citizens association from Mali Zvornik; “Building Capacities for Transparency Boosting" implemented by the "Podrinje Anti-Corruption Team" citizens association from Loznica; "Improving the Transparency of Public Finances in the Municipality of Opovo" implemented by the “Opovo Youth Initiative” and the Center for the Development of a Democratic Society "EUROPOLIS"; and "Strengthening Local Transparency by Improving the Availability of Information of Public Importance" implemented by the "Intermedia" and "Green Planet" associations from Blaca.

As a result of the project, the level of transparency of the work of local self-governments was estimated and an open online database of all documents of public interest resulting from the work of local self-governments was created. The database is available at www.dostup.no.

Within the project, recommendations have been made to improve proactive transparency at the local and national level entitled “Proactive Transparency of Local Governments: A Necessary Element of Good Governance and a Condition for Citizen Participation”, a policy paper entitled “Proactive Transparency of Local Governments in Serbia: In the Gap between Regulations and Practices”, as well as the "Proactive Transparency of Public Administration in Serbia: (Un) Achievable Goal” policy study.

Based on the results of the research conducted through this project, by participating in the Special Inter-ministerial Group for the preparation of the Second Action Plan for the Implementation of the Open Government Partnership Initiative in the Republic of Serbia for 2016 and 2017, the Belgrade Open School successfully advocated proactive transparency and availability of information from the Information Booklets. The obligation was introduced within the Action Plan for the Implementation of the Partnership for Open Government Initiative in the Republic of Serbia for 2016 and 2017.

The "Local Transparency Booster" project was implemented by the Belgrade Open School in partnership with the Toplica Center for Democracy and Human Rights and in cooperation with the Standing Conference of Towns and Municipalities, with support from the Delegation of the European Union to the Republic of Serbia. The project was co-financed by the Office for Cooperation with Civil Society of the Government of the Republic of Serbia.

Through the implementation of the Belgrade Open School “ReForce” project, civil society organizations and the public administration have been empowered for utilizing a partnership approach in creating local policies by introducing a new service of the SCTM Advisory Center for Sustainable CSO and Public Administration Cooperation by developing an online platform to support the process of local policy making, thus promoting the role of CSOs in the development of the local community. The project lasted from November 2013 to January 2015.

The project improved the procedures for awarding CSO grants and the transparency and accountability of public administration in managing local funds through:

  • Establishing an effective framework for the disposal of funds from local CSO funds;
  • Launching and implementing local CSO initiatives in cooperation with public administration, in accordance with local needs;
  • Making recommendations for improving the procedures for allocating funds to CSOs.

The overall objective of the project is to support the cooperation between civil society organizations and the public administration in order to create a systemic, sustainable and efficient partnership in the process policy and decision-making at the local level.

The specific objectives of the project are:

  • Developing an institutionalized, effective dialogue to strengthen the role of civil society organizations in the development of the local community;
  • Improving procedures for awarding grants to civil society organizations in accordance with the needs and strategic priorities of local communities;
  • Strengthening the role of civil society organizations in improving the transparency and accountability of public administration in the efficient management of local funds intended for civil society organizations.

Project activities:

  1. Developing a policy study;
  2. Training for strengthening the capacities of associations and local government officials entitled "Partnership Between the Public and Civil Sector in Creating Local Development Policies";
  3. Creating the "Local Development Support Package" web platform;
  4. The public advocacy initiative "Support for the Institutional Dialogue between Civil Society and Public Administration", which consists of three sub-activities:

4.1. Consultative dialogue;
4.2. Public advocacy campaign in 5 local self-governments;
4.3.  A support program for local associations through awarding small grants to 5 local self-governments.

The partner on the project is the Standing Conference of Towns and Municipalities – The Association of Cities and Municipalities of Serbia. Project partners are the Agency for European Integration and Cooperation with the Associations of the City of Belgrade and the Regional Development Agency "Zlatibor".

The project was implemented with the support of the Delegation of the European Union in Serbia and the Office for Cooperation with Civil Society of the Government of the Republic of Serbia from November 28, 2013, to January 28, 2015.

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