Revision of the manner of distributing funds to CSOs, establishing fund for securing financial participation of CSOs, developing strategies and plans by the municipality and organising more frequent meetings or discussions with organisations, are some of the recommendations that CSOs gave to the municipality of Makedonska Kamenica during the debate within the visit of the Mobile Resource Centre on October 22.2018.
At the meeting there were 23 representatives from CSOs, the municipal council, municipality, schools, public enterprises etc.
Sonja Stamenkova, the major of Makedonska Kamenica, stressed that the municipality awards grants to CSOs, in amount of five million denars, annually, but additional strengthening of the cooperation is needed which will contribute towards improving the life of the citizens.
One of the main points of the discussion was the manner of distributing the funds to CSOs, given that the foreseen methodology is outdated and is not fully implemented. CSOs’ representatives highlighted that sport clubs and activities are financed with the same funds that are used to finance CSOs. Additionally, it was stated that the organisations are not accountable, only invoices and receipts are paid, but there are no visible results.
The majority of the attendees so far have not applied for project financed by other donors besides the municipality, mainly because of lack of information and low readiness for writing applications. The ones that had bigger experience in this field, encouraged the others to work on educating their target groups and to cooperate with the other organisations in order to strengthen their portfolio, as well as to improve their capacities.
During the meeting, the Mobile Resource Center team presented its activities, directed towards the revival of civil society sector through different types of assistance, including trainings.
Such meetings are foreseen in several municipalities under the Civil Society Resource Centre, an EU-funded project implemented by Macedonian Centre for International Cooperation in partnership with Media Plus, Shtip and Association for Democratic Initiatives, Gostivar.
