OSCE Mission to Skopje supports municipality to promote good governance in local economic strategic planning
SKOPJE, 3 November 2011 – More than fifty representatives from the business community, schools, municipal administration and civil society from Skopje’s Ilinden municipality will participate in the drafting of a new strategy for local economic development through a project supported by the OSCE Mission to Skopje launched today.
The project, initiated by Ilinden municipality, will help increase the transparency of the work of the municipal administration and elected officials.
“Through this series of participatory strategic planning workshops, the OSCE Mission continues to support the inclusion of the good governance principle of participation at all levels of administration,” said the Deputy Head of the OSCE Mission to Skopje, Ambassador Natalya Drozd.
“Additionally, it will increase the transparency and accountability of the process and will further build the capacities of the Ilinden municipal administration, businessmen and citizens to use participatory planning tools for the development of their future programmes and activities.”
The mayor of Ilinden municipality, Zika Stojanovski, said that the support offered by the OSCE Mission to Skopje to Ilinden Municipality to help citizens jointly develop the new strategic plan for local economic development for 2012-2016, will help to ensure that the plan can serve as a basis for improving the quality of citizens life in Ilinden Municipality.
Five workshops will be held by end of November. In 2006, the Mission facilitated the production of the first local economic development strategy of Ilinden municipality using participatory strategic planning. An evaluation of this strategy found that more than 90% of the targeted goals and objectives had been successfully achieved.