Improving local policy-making through structured communication between stakeholders

The KLGI Institute, in cooperation with the non-governmental organisation “Syri i Vizionit”, held the next regional meeting in Peja, which brought together civil society organisations at the local level to discuss ways of strengthening civil society mechanisms and increasing demands for effective accountability from local institutions.

The meeting aimed to strengthen structured communication between local actors in reinforcing joint agendas for continuous cooperation. In this context, it is extremely important to strengthen cooperation between civil society and local institutions by setting strategic goals and a joint action agenda. Beyond this, it serves to strengthen democracy at the local level, where civil society, on the one hand, articulates problems and, on the other, offers professional support and oversight of policy implementation.

The regional meeting also aimed to identify the challenges and problems that civil society organisations at the local level encounter in their functioning, and to identify opportunities and exchange good practices for their advancement.

By strengthening the civil society platform at the local level, demands for accountability and the responsiveness of decision-makers increase. In this context, local civil society organisations must find the best form of organisation among themselves in order to be properly represented as a sector in relation to municipal public authorities — a platform that would include all civil society organisations, the media and other local actors, through which the aim is to increase the role of civil society by strengthening clear mechanisms for action.

This meeting was also a good opportunity to create networking and possible cooperation across the activities of civil society organisations operating at the local level.

The regional meeting was organised within the programme ‘Support for Stronger and More Sustainable Municipalities (SSSM)’, which aims to address the challenges and problems that civil society organisations at the local level encounter in their functioning, and also to identify opportunities and exchange good practices for their advancement.