In the second phase in the period from 2024 to 2026, the project aims to improve gender equality and gender responsive budgeting (GRB) in North Macedonia through continuous support and development of the Resource Center for Gender Responsive Policymaking and Budgeting. This initiative, led by UN Women and the Ministry of Labor and Social Policy (MLSP), and implemented by the Center for Change Management (CCM), aims to improve the capacity of civil servants in integrating gender perspectives in policy-making processes. and budgeting. The main objective is to ensure that government policies and budgets reflect and respond to the needs of both women and men, particularly focusing on the most vulnerable groups.

Corruption and patronage in North Macedonia persist, eroding citizen and investor trust in institutions, diminishing accountability and transparency, hindering economic growth, and contributing to political fragility and instability. Corruption reduces economic opportunities for citizens and is the primary driver of nation-wide out-migration. Corruption prevails because authorities do not act to implement reforms or address corruption when it occurs, and institutions struggle with ineffective processes and insufficient resources. According to reports on public perception, the justice system does not treat everyone equally before the law and undue political influence prevents justice in corruption cases. Further, citizens and businesses believe corruption is an ingrained part of life and do not do enough to demand more.

This activity supports the government and other anti-corruption entities to take action in addressing corruption when it occurs. The activity works in equal partnership with the government and independent state entities to detect, mitigate, and prevent corruption of all forms, and hold state actors accountable. Programming engages independent state entities to improve government functioning, cooperation, and coordination; increase transparency in ways that decrease opportunities for corruption; and support accountability mechanisms within the purview of the government and independent state accountability mechanisms. The activity also creates opportunities by diversifying anticorruption partnerships, exploring innovative approaches, tools, and technologies.

The project aims to maintain good governance at the top of the political agenda. The project interventions are designed to analyze current state of affairs in several areas related to the accountability as one of the top priorities in the PAR agenda, such as: improving transparency and accountability of public institutions; responsibility for delivery of results and improving the supervision of the public in the implementation of the recommendations by the key institutions and greater efficiency, effectiveness and functionality of the institutions. As accountability in modern government is a key component of democracy, the continuation of the project will keep the focus on the principles of good governance ensuring that elected officials are held responsible for their actions, especially undertaking structural reforms and building a strong and effective public administration.

This project strives to enhance the accountability of the institutions by improving the coordination and implementation of Government policies will ensure overall effective functioning of the Government. This can be achieved through solid mechanisms in place for development of evidence-based policies, defining Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) that will be monitored under CoG coordination, improved internal communication protocols within the designated administrative network and effective system of delegation and responsibilities. Most important, better understanding and awareness of citizens, media and civil society organizations about the principles of good governance will increase the pressure on the government to deliver more effective policies with better results for citizens.

Finally, improved governance will increase accountability and transparency of the institutions and politicians towards citizens in the long term, thus limiting possibilities for corruption, political influencing and clientelism.

Therefore, the overall goal of the project is to create effective governance standards and to facilitate the process of synchronised evidence-based policy planning and implementation process. 

The UNICEF country programme 2020-2025 focuses on policies relevant to children, primarily health, social protection and education, and the porposed collaboration falls within the expected outcomes related to health. UNICEF detected that "in the health sector, there has been insufficient emphasis on preventative and primary care, and the government has mainly focused on building hospitals, buying expensive equipment, and benefiting from fraudulent procurements. The input by CCM will cover aspects related to institutional organisation and development, human capital development, more specifically systematization of working positions, job descriptions and competences (general and professional), as well as performance management and appraisal. Improved functioning of the Patronage Service as part of the health sector will significantly indirectly contribute to the wellbeing of children in the country.

The focus of this project will be to further digitalise services in the education sector, which are used frequently and can have a larger impact both on the users, and the MES as a service provider. The project will encompass full digitalisation of these services (reaching transactional level according to EU benchmarks), providing support in reorganising the internal processes in the MES for these services, building capacities of the administration in the MES for administering the services, and designing and delivering promotional campaign to motivate the relevant user groups in using the e-services.

The impact of the project will be to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of the MoD through functional public procurements’ management. In the mid and long-term, the developed e-system for management of public procurements should enable timely planning and preparation of procurement and successful implementation of tender procedures with standardized documents, while minimising the risk of corruption and conflict of interest. The actual public procurement process is undertaken by the Bureau for Public Procurement, so this project will improve the planning and coordination of procurements.

This project will address the challenges and the future development for 9 women owned businesses, affected by the Covid-19 economic downfall. They will go through a process of structuring and restructuring their business model, some of them (informal businesses) formalizing activities especially those in the field of the agricultural sector. Not only that, know-how techniques that will be developed and knowledge and skills improved but also woman will be encourage to modify and introduce innovate products and services. Furthermore, innovative manufacturing and selling techniques will be introduced, with the sole purpose of strengthening, improving the sustainability and profitability of the businesses.  Also, progress in digital skills will be introduced, especially since the coronavirus crisis has shown that adequate digital skills are crucial for the business to be able to connect and adapt to the new digital economy.

Furthermore, the project will be focused on creating policies and measures for alleviation of the economic consequences arisen form the COVID-19 crisis specifically considering women owned businesses and women entrepreneurs, as one of the most vulnerable group to the health crisis. By the end of the project, it is expected measures and different policy changes to be proposed to the local and central governmental bodies with all the activities to be undertaken in the next 12 months

The Center for Change Management is supporting SIGMA Mission for annual assessment of public administration in the Republic of North Macedonia for the year 2021, by providing local expertise and logistics of the staff and international experts engaged by SIGMA. The activities inlude support of the Ministry of Information Society and Administration in organization and coordination of meeting with relevant institutions, providing relevant documents, review and assessment of submitted documentation by institutions and support in preparation of the report by SIGMA.

The project Youth involvement in a constructive dialogue: Communist Past in Contemporary Western Balkan (YOU-WB) is a project funded by Europe for Citizens Program, European Remembrance. 

It involves students, practitioners, and academicians from Albania, Macedonia, France, and Italy and aims is to foster national and transnational youth activist's dialogue about the reflection of past communist regimes in contemporary Western Balkan (WB). 

The project activities are envisaging different thematic 4 workshops in 4 different countries tackling the topics that reflect the past communist regime (such as rules, norms, rights, practices, and customs); the national Identities and collective memory in an enlarged Europe; political culture and social changes in post-communist transition, finalizing with the conference that will focus on the Post-Communism and Democracy in WB.

The project is a partnership among Center for Comparative and International Study (project leader) CCIS; Mesdheu Center (MC) Qendra SHKENCE DHE INOVACION PER ZHVILLIM (SCiDEV) (from Albania); Center for Change Management (from North Macedonia); Patrimoine sans Frontières (PSF) (France) and PERIPLI - Culture e Società Euromediterranee (Italy)

The institutional grant is awarded by the Civica Mobilitas programme financed by the Swiss agency for development and cooperation (SDC) represented by the Swiss embassy in the Republic of North Macedonia. The grant is intended to support CCM in conducting activities for institutional development and organizational strengthening.

The PSP will support the Assembly of the Republic of North Macedonia (the Assembly) independence efforts through consensus-building, structural reform, and capacity building in the Assembly’s institutional development; its legislative and oversight roles; and its institutional transparency and accountability.

The PSP will be implemented by the National Democratic Institute, Center for Change Management and the Institute for Democracy Societas Civilis Skopje to support the Assembly’s strategic planning; human resources management reforms; improved regulatory impact assessment and procurement processes; commitment to open data, and, by gauging public opinion and monitoring reform efforts, including greater civic engagement in policy-making processes.