Citizens Monitoring of Local Government in ?a?ak

1. Context of the Initiative
   Corruption remains one of the main concerns in Serbian society, especially at a local level. The latest EC Progress Report 2019 for Serbia states that: “Overall, corruption is prevalent in many areas and remains an issue of concern.” While some laws are being adopted, “there is no measureable impact of corruption-prevention reforms”. Citizen participation in fight against corruption is not addressed in a comprehensive manner and no progress has been made; the situation is even worse in local communities, far away of general public and international actors. Brave individuals who report on cases of corruption are rare, usually threatened and blackmailed. While the legal deadline for establishment of Local Anti-corruption Forums (LAF) in all municipalities was in 2017, 6 municipalities (out of around 150) made some steps in that direction and only a few are (semi)-functional.
   2. Summary of the Initiative
   The grant supports the initiative that addresses the needs for citizens’ monitoring of public policies at local level, in order to execute pressure on local authorities and public servants to perform in accountable and transparent manner while respecting democratic values.
   In order to achieve it, the initiative includes ongoing monitoring and awareness raising through analysis, public debates and local media campaigns as well as initiatives for introduction of good democratic practices in local governance. The main focus is on anti-corruption and monitoring of public spending, with possibility to react on any urgent cases of misuse of power by local authorities.
   The beneficiary also plans to establish a civil society media portal, to inform citizens about the topics that may be difficult to find in commercial local media, despite rather independent character of some of them.
   3. Key activities
   The key activities foreseen within this initiative include:
   • Monitoring and awareness raising,
   • Organizing public debates and local media campaigns,
   • Initiating establishment of Local Anti-corruption Forum,
   • Establishing a CS media portal.

The implementation of this initiative began on August 1st, 2019. and will last for two years.