On 12 April, the Think for Europe Network (TEN) and WeBER partner organisations organized the 11th regional meeting of the WeBER Platform, in a hybrid form, online and in Sarajevo. The meeting focused on monitoring reforms in the EU Accession Process and the contribution of Balkan civil society. Participants included CSOs from the region, including members of the WeBER Platform, representatives of SIGMA/OECD, ReSPA, GIZ, and other institutions, all contributing to a fruitful discussion on the topic.
The regional meeting aimed to instigate discussion on involving civil society more effectively in monitoring the preparedness of the Western Balkan countries for EU membership, but through an enhanced and more quantified approach. A draft discussion paper was presented at the meeting, which explores ideas on how the existing monitoring and assessment mechanisms for WB countries in the accession process can be improved and how civil society monitoring methodologies can be used as objective “third-party” indicators in the spirit of the new enlargement methodology. The draft paper was finalized after the meeting discussions and is now available here.
Ms. Anja Bosilkova-Antovska, BCSDN’s Policy and Advocacy Coordinator, presented the Monitoring Matrix as a good practice example in the region of a research tool for measuring the health of the legal, regulatory, and financial environment in which CSO in WBT operate, but also a tool that aims to respond to the need of CSOs to have evidence-based research products and capacities to advocate for policy changes towards a more enabling civil society environment. The research conducted under the MM aims to provide for shadow reporting on the enabling environment for CSDev and influence Enlargement policy and funding support towards the sustainable and strategic development of the sector, including the Guidelines for EU Support to Civil Society in Enlargement Countries, 2014-2020.
In addition to presenting the regional value and practice of implementing the MM in the WBT, colleagues from BCSDN member organization Civic Initiatives presented the experience of implementing the methodology on national level in Serbia. Other tools discussed at the meeting were the Monitoring Anticorruption Policy Implementation (MACPI) and CSO Sustainability Index, as well as the PratimJA initiative for monitoring PAR at the local level and the Open Doors of Judiciary project in Serbia for monitoring the state of judiciary in the country.