On 20 December 2019, the Minister of Information Society and Administration Damjan Mančevski and the Executive Director of the Foundation Open Society – Macedonia Fani Karanfilova-Panovska signed a Memorandum of Cooperation.
The Memorandum of Cooperation is a commitment between the Ministry of Information Society and Administration (MISA) and the Foundation Open Society – Macedonia (FOSM) to enable meaningful and structured participation of civil society in key sector reforms as part of the EU accession process.
Through the project “Dialogue with CSOs – Platform for Structured Participation in EU Integration”, FOSM will implement activities to increase the visibility of the sectoral working groups and will actively support their work by providing meaningful and structured participation of civil society, taking into account the specific needs of each sectoral working group.
FOSM is committed to building and enhancing the structural dialogue between institutions and civil society, through various activities, developing a platform as a focal point for sharing essential and relevant information from institutions and CSOs, sectoral policies and national consultative processes; coordination meetings; sector consultations; conferences; capacity building; visualizations of key conclusions; web-broadcasting of the sessions of the Council for Cooperation with and Development of the Civil Sector; preparation of 27 reports on the work of sectoral working groups and other activities.
MISA, within the established cooperation and partnership and for the functioning of the structural dialogue, will share and exchange essential information relevant to civil society participation in sectoral policies and national consultation processes; will enable MISA representatives to attend workshops and conferences; will enable the presence of representatives and researchers, part of the civil society, in the sectoral working groups that will prepare an independent annual report on the work of the sectoral working group.
The Foundation Open Society – Macedonia has signed Memorandums of Cooperation with the Secretariat for European Affairs, the Ministry of Education and Science, the Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of Labor and Social Policy. Memorandums of Understanding are also in the process of being signed with other line ministries responsible for the work of the sectoral working groups.
The project “Dialogue with CSOs – Platform for Structured Participation in EU Integration” is funded by the Delegation of the European Union to the Republic of North Macedonia, implemented by FOSM in partnership with Eurothink – Center for European Strategies, Center for Civil Communications and Reactor – Research in Action. Тhe Secretariat for European Affairs is also a contributor.
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20 December 2019