Regional Best Practice Fair Skopje – In Post

On September 2nd and 3rd, at Hotel Continental in the City of Skopje in North Macedonia, the Regional Best Practice Fair was held, organized by our very own Balkan Network for Local Democracy. The nature of the event was a hybrid meeting, with participants and presenters both in person and through the zoom platform online. There were 30 participants in total, and interpretation was provided, as the presenters were allowed to speak their respective languages. 

This event is part of the project “CSOs Networking for Better Local Democracy in the Balkans”, funded by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA), and implemented by the Balkan Civil Society Development Network (BCSDN). It included participants from various groups such as CSOs, youth groups, BNLD members, certain national stakeholders, etc. 

Both days included presentations and discussions surrounding topics from presentations of data about matters like self-government, participation, and CSOs, various case studies of individual community practices in the WB6 among 9 communities regarding topics such as active citizenship, decision-making, and more. This all culminated in a digital activity in which participants would vote through their phones as to which individual case stood out to them the most, and shared their ideas through the Slido app.

The findings presented by the researchers will be used on a national and regional level as a basis for further development of civil society and advocation for the interests of citizens among the Western Balkans. It is a major goal to get youth especially more involved and informed with local self-government. Among the individual municipality cases, we saw many examples of mobilization and promotion of values of active citizenship, such as with a youth podcast, an initiative to get local elections back in the city of Mostar, promotional videos, spreading of environmental consciousness though a booklet, and more. 

Overall, there are still ways to go regarding the enrichment of local democracy, but progress is being made, and the Fair made that clear with the presentation of interesting ideas and findings that can help to improve things even more. Many best practices were highlighted, and there are still many more to be done.