News

The first meeting of the network of civil society organizations for improvement of the public services, organized by the Center for change management and the Association Zenith as part of the project “Citizen-centric approach to delivery of public services”, was held today.

At the start of the meeting, Martin Todevski, project manager in the Center for change management, presented the key findings from the research that CCM conducted towards the end of 2016 and was focused on the main public services which are provided for the citizens and especially what would it mean if these services are being provided electronically for the citizens as well as the institutions.

The conclusion of this research is that the digitalization of the services is beneficial both for the citizens and the institutions because it saves money, time and human resources and it aso provides faster and more timely delivery of all those services that the citizens use during their life.

Alekandar Nikolov, executive director of the Association Zenith, spoke about the things that the European Union demands from our country regarding the services.

He added that the EU underlines the importance of the permanent dialogue of the government with the citizens and the CSO’s regarding the quality of the public services, indicating that their remarks should always be taken under consideration as a way for improving of these services.

In that context, its necessary to note that often the legal solutions which regulate the services are not done in a consultation with the citizens and include suggestions that haven’t yielded satisfactory results

At the same time, one of the recommendations of SIGMA is that’s necessary to reduce to minimum the number of information and documents which are requested from the citizens in the process of delivery of certain public service.

Also, the citizens should not be forced to provide data and documents, which are already in possession of the state organs themselves.

The European practice also suggests that for every service there should be different channels and ways in which it can be delivered.

The project coordinator from Zenith, Dusko Todoroski, spoke about the goals of the establishing of the network of the civil society organizations for public services, such as the strengthening of the capacities of these organizations, the access to relevant analyses concerning the problem of the public services but also the active possibility for participation in the process of improvement of the services, through ideas and suggestions.

Iskra Belcheva Ristovska, project manager in the CCM, underlined that the project “Citizen-centric approach to delivery of public services” should result with the adoption of a road map for improvement of the public services. She also spoke about the planned activities which will be undertaken during the project and will lead to improvement of the public services.

The members of the network also had a brief introduction of their work in the field of delivery of the public services and the reform of the public administration.

They also talked about a number of interesting examples for registered deficiencies and problems with the delivery of the public services in the communities where they work.

The meetings of the network of the CSO’s will also continue in the period ahead.