Second Meeting of PAR National Working Group in Podgorica, Montenegro

On 30 October 2017, Institut Alternativa organised the second meeting of PAR National Working Group (NWG) in Podgorica, Montenegro.

This meeting was organised as part of the regional WeBER project, financed by the European Commission and co-financed by the Kingdom of the Netherlands. Participants in the meeting included 5 CSO representatives from Montenegro, which form the NWG for monitoring the Public Administration Reform.

Since some of the NWG members are also grantees within the framework of WeBER’s Small Grant Facility for civil society monitoring of PAR at local level, their representatives shared experiences and key findings in their projects so far into the implementation. One of the NWG members, Novi Horizonti, has already concluded its research into local level PAR reforms, their representative presented the study on proactive publishing of information at the local level, with the Municipality of Ulcinj as the case study, providing examples of research methods that could easily be replicated in other municipalities in order to compare results.

IA’s representatives presented the work done so far on preparing the WeBER methodology, as well as the research conducted on the first two indicators that has already been finished, regarding the areas of Accountability and Policy Development and Coordination. Possibilities for sharing the early results and methodological dilemmas of the PAR Monitor with the NWG have been discussed, as the NWG members expressed interest to contribute to the research process.

During the second session, the NWG members discussed their potential inputs to the Annual Report of the European Commission for Montenegro and provided proposals to be addressed during the Third Regional Meeting of the WeBER Platform in Skopje on November 1-2 2017.

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Western Balkans Enabling Project for Civil Society Monitoring of Public Administration Reform – WeBER – is a three-year project financed by the European Union (European Commission) and co-financed by the Kingdom of the Netherlands.  You can find more about project here. NWGs are national consultative mechanism for participation of civil society in the dialogue with relevant public authorities on design and monitoring of PAR processes in the WB. NWGs are constituted in each of the WB country as national extensions for dialogue on PAR of the wider mechanism – regional WeBER Platform.

More about WeBER Platform structure can be found here, while organisations from Montenegro that wish to join can use the permanent open call for expression of interest for CSOs to join the NWGs.