Amidst preparations for drafting the Framework Strategy on Cooperation between Civil Society and Kosovo Public Authorities, the Working Group on Strengthening Participation of civil society in decision making process held its first meeting on 22 March 2011.
The meeting started with discussions on the current status of civil society inclusion in public consultations and decision-making processes and continued with concrete recommendations on the topic of strengthening civil society participation in decision-making.
The conclusions reached following the discussions of the participants are summarized as follows:
- It was concluded that the Cooperation Strategy should cover also the Assembly of Kosovo as key legislative body for the promulgation of laws in Kosovo;
- The lack of an NGO database that would categorize them according to their scope of work, was considered to be a serious difficulty towards cooperation between civil society and public authorities;
- Civil society organizations should be involved in working groups on the drafting of by-laws;
- CiviKos Platform was considered to be a very good opportunity to connect NGOs, since civil society organizations quite often face difficulties in identifying customized NGOs for certain fields.
At the end of the meeting the participants consensually agreed to allocate duties and responsibilities for the following organizations:
1. Kosovo Democratic Institute – (KDI) shall identify cooperation areas with the Assembly of Kosovo that may be included in the Cooperation Strategy;
2. Regional Environmental Center – (REC) and Environment Protection Foundation – (EPF) shall determine some consultation principles on environmental protection;
3. Kosovo Centre for Security Studies – (KCSS) shall make an explanation of cooperation concepts with Kosovo public authorities, namely of the “Community based” and “Think tank based” concepts;
4. Kosovo Civil Society Foundation – (KCSF) shall identify basic principles of public consultations at Kosovo central level;
5. NGO KOHA – shall make an analysis of the Law on Local Self-Government in order to identify the opportunities that this Law provides on civil society inclusion on decision-making, and the needs for supplementing the law.
This meeting was attended by representatives of 11 civil society organizations.