Grants for implementation of six-month projects have been awarded to 18 civil society organizations from six countries: Macedonia, Serbia, Albania, Kosovo, Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina, which will address urgent local and national issues in the upcoming period in order to advance good governance and the rule of law.

These grants are dedicated to local civil society organizations, and have been awarded within the ACTION SEE – Accountability, Technology and Institutional Openness Network in SEE project, which is implemented by Center for Democratic Transition (CDT), Metamorphosis Foundation from Macedonia, Westminster Foundation for Democracy from Great Britain, CRTA – Center for Research, Transparency and Accountability from Serbia, Citizens Association Why not? from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Open Data Kosovo – ODK and Levizja Mjaft! from Albania, with financial support of the European Union.

Awardees from Montenegro are:

Institute Alternative – Confidential Procurement: Out of Sight – Out of Mind project aims at improving transparency and accountability in the public procurement process and the public spending therewith.

35mm – Fairness and not Bias – Eradicate Cronyism! project aims to form network of civil society organizations, media and individuals against cronyism that will play proactive role in the eradication of cronyism on local and national level, and will also raise public awareness and encourage public dialogue on cronyism and employment in the public administration based on party affiliation.

Monitoring Group Ulcinj – MogUL – Transparency for Accountability project aims at engaging journalists, media as well as citizens in order to influence and increase the level of transparency of public institutions and administrative bodies.

Biciklo.me – Better Traffic – Better City aims to analyze problems arising in Podgorica as a result of inadequate and outdated public policies that regulate traffic. Through online, desk and field research we will show how these problems impact the people and the space in the city, and propose solutions that could improve the current situation. Public debate about the present challenges and future plans for better and more efficient traffic system is significant part of the project, which is envisioned as an effort to help local institutions in tailoring better traffic policy.

New order – Citizens for better Local community is the project that aims to provide the higher level of involvement of the citizens in the policy making process on local level as well as to increase reliability and accountability of the officials during electoral campaign as well as during their whole mandate. Rising awareness of the citizens about the importance of their involvement in the functioning of the local government and decision making process is one of the key goals of this project, strongly related to the increasing of interest of citizens for the important topics and problems on the local level, based on their needs and obtained information about functioning of the municipal administration.

NGO Travel & Technology Centre – “Efficient PR services – more informed citizens”

The overall objective of the project is to evaluate the effectiveness of the communication between ministries and citizens, as well as to provide recommendations in order to communicate in a more professional, efficient and coordinated manner, which is in line with ACTION SEE objectives through enhancing the involvement of civil society and media organizations in the creation of public opinion, policy making and participation in the decision-making mechanisms and increasing capacities of civil society to build its constituencies and tackle bold issues, and is in line with the principles of transparency and Free Access to Public Information. NGO Travel & Technology Centre, in cooperation with News Agency MINA – Podgorica, will work on the achievement of the objectives of the project through legal analysis, interviews and focus groups for journalists, preparation of a policy paper and a press-conference.