МЕК

The Civil Association Community Development Institute (CDI), organized a national conference on December 21, 2011 at the "EU Info Centre" in Skopje under the project "BONA MENTE: Supporting the Commissions for Interethnic Relations CIRs" implemented by CDI in the past 11 months with financial support from the European Union, through the IPA of 2008.  

The conference aimed at promoting the results achieved within the project and opening the discussion about the need to amend the Law on Local Self-Government, in order to strengthen the role of CIRs at the local level.

Representatives of the civil society sector, the CIRs from 21 municipalities, members of Parliament, and other participants attending the conference had the opportunity to become familiar with the contents of the CIRs manual titled "Everything I want to know about CIRs" along with the Analysis of policies for CIRs that CDI has drafted under this project, as well as specific proposals for amendments to the Law of Local Government  that CDI proposes  for increasing the participation of minority ethnic communities in decisions making that affect them by strengthening the role of CIRs.

In their speeches, the Executive Director of CDI Sreten Koceski and General Secretary Damir Neziri presented the activities that were conducted as part of the "Bona Mente: Support for CIRs" while the Professor from the Law Faculty in Skopje, Ms. Renata Deskovska addressed the legal aspects of the proposed amendments to the Law on Local Self-Government and how these changes will impact the improvement of the functionality of these commissions in the future.

During the conference, the following activities to be implemented by CDI in 2012 were presented, with an aim to adopt the proposed amendment by the Assembly of the Republic of Macedonia.

During the discussion following the presentations, the need for municipalities to provide resources for basic conditions for work of the committees was noted. In addition, the president of the CIR from Debar, Mr. Shanija Ajroski highlighted the positive example of providing offices and other types of support by the pilot municipalities that participated in the project Model for Efficient Communication between the Commissions for Interethnic Relations and the citizens - MEC. This contributed to the implementation of key activities for the Commission from Debar. One of them was the changing of street names, which was completely conducted locally in accordance with law and in consultation with all the relevant factors, but was stopped on a central government level. According to the other speakers, the reason for the blockade was an administrative error and the municipality should re-submit the request which is not disputable.

This project is a follow-up of a series of activities that CDI conducted in the past 6 years, and which aim to improve the performance of the work of CIRs and increase their role on a local level.

Source: Community Development Institute: "Bona Mente Conference" December 23, 2011

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