Season's greetings!!! Wishing you a Season filled with beautiful moments and cherished memories.
CCI presented the results of monitoring of work of 13 governments and parliaments in BiH for the first nine months of 2015. These activities are part of the project „Civil Society Sustainability Project“ (CSSP) supported by USAID.
By way of these findings, CCI provides to BH citizens the information about the work of their elected representatives in state, entities' and cantonal authorities’ bodies. These activities are a part of the project CSSP – project of sustainability of the civil society, supported by USAID.
One of the goals of these reports, that are published quarterly, is to present to the public the recommendations for improving the work of the mentioned institutions and the improvement of „two-way communication“ between the authorities and the civil sector. Over 190 recommendations arising from monitoring, and that were in the form of an initiative sent to the authorities in 2015, were partly or completely adopted in the past period.
On the following links you can read summary of monitoring reports.
By the street action organized in Sarajevo during October 2015, CCI drew the public interest to the importance of passing the Adult Education Act in Canton Sarajevo, as well as to the importance of lifelong learning. These activities are supported by EU Delegation in BiH.
In addition to the representatives of CCI and numerous media houses, the minister of education, science and the young of Canton Sarajevo who fully supported the activities of the Campaign “Uči & Radi” (Learn&Work), were present at the stand.
The Adult Education Act was unanimously adopted by the Assembly of this Canton on 07 October 2015; the Act incorporated all the best practices in the said field proposed by CCI and ALDI. Canton Sarajevo is the sixth, and since the beginning of the Campaign Learn&Work, the fifth canton, which legally completed the field of adult education. The Act contributes toward the fight against illiteracy, and will, in a system way, enable lifelong learning which may positively influence reduction of unemployment and poverty.
Upon CCI’s initiative, the procedure of passing the Adult Education Act in Herzegovina-Neretva Canton was started. The adoption of the Act was planned in the Program of Work of the Ministry of Education, Science, Culture and Sport of HNC for the first quarter 2016. Designing the predraft of the Act in Canton 10 and Central Bosnian Canton is also currently underway, and its adoption is also planned to take place in 2016.
In cooperation with the Agency for Local Development Initiatives (ALDI), and with the support of the European Union, CCI started in 2014 the implementation of a two-year project „Education and Job“, which aims at improving the rights of workers and of the mobility of workforce by establishing a legal framework for adult education through designing, advocating and monitoring the legislation for adult education at the level of cantons, entities and District Brcko. The project will focus on passing a coherent and harmonized legal framework throughout the country, in the fields of education, requalification and additional qualification of the adults in order to improve the situation in the labour market, i.e. reduce unemployment and improve the position of socially marginalized groups. More information about the project available from www.uciradi.ba,
As part of the project BRANA, which is supported by the USAID, public debates in flooded areas have been held in order to encourage the dialogue between the local authorities and citizens, and to improve the efficiency of the process of reconstruction after floods.
During October, November and December, the members of the BRANA network organized a number of public debates in flooded municipalities. The public debates were organized in Srebrenik, Brod, Bijeljina, Bratunac, Olovo, Novi Grad, Modrica, Doboj Istok, Derventa, Zvornik, Kladanj, Bihac, Vukosavlje, Kostajnica, Kozarska Dubica, Srbac, Prijedor, Petrovo and Teslic.
These events were attended by the representatives of the local administration, the citizens who have suffered the damage in last year's floods, as well as the representatives of non-governmental sector and the media. General conclusions included the following: the citizens are not sufficiently informed about the distribution of the aid for the flooded; it is necessary to improve the communication between all the relevant subjects involved in the process of reconstruction after floods; this type of communication with the citizens contributes to a better cooperation for the wellbeing of all citizens.
Promotional
stands were organized in a number of municipalities in November and December –
the functions of the website
www.brana.ba were presented at those stands to the citizens via laptops placed at them, and the citizens were given an opportunity to leave a comment next to each donation, and to use the online forum, FB page and twitter. In this way the citizens were informed about all the tools through which they can obtain and exchange information about the process of reconstruction after floods. The promotional stands were organized in Modrica, Samac, Doboj, Doboj Jug, Maglaj, Zepce and Zavidovici.
CCI has been implementing the BRANA project since April 2015, with the support of the American Agency for International Development (USAID), in order to contribute to the transparency of the process of reconstruction in the areas devastated by the floods, and thus to the strengthening of the overall transparency and responsibility in the work of public institutions in BIH, as well as the private sector and the donors.
BASE – 'Building Accountability and Systems in the Elections' is a new project implemented by the Coalition Pod lupom (Under a Magnifying Glass). This three-year project is financially supported by the Delegation of the European Commission in BiH. Thanks to this Project, the Coalition Pod lupom, continues its work as part of the citizens’ monitoring of elections, as well as the post-election monitoring.
The Coalition Pod Lupom, which is, besides CCI, made of AC DON from Prijedor, Perpetuum mobile from Banja Luka, Center for Citizens’ Cooperation from Livno, OIA from Sarajevo and Forum of Citizens from Tuzla, was very active from October to December. We will share some of the most important events.
Review of election legislations and election process
segments in 40 OSCE member countries. The Proceedings of Authors’ Papers
published.
Having designed and presented to the public the four comparative analyses
about the different segments of the election process in 40 member countries of
OSCE, the Coalition ‘Pod lupom” designed a Review in September which analyses,
in a fragmentary way, the election legislation of 40 OSCE member countries. The
Review may serve the decision-makers to accept certain solutions that will
certainly contribute to a more efficient and economical implementation of the
elections themselves, and at the same time guarantee the respect of the
election will of citizens’-voters in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The publication is
the result of the engagement of the group of young researchers whose papers
could contribute to further development of election culture in Bosnia and
Herzegovina.
The Proceedings of Expert and Authors’ papers “Elections in Bosnia and Herzegovina: characteristics and possible improvements” was prepared out of a wish to gather in one place different subjects in the sphere of BiH election process. By gathering the authors in the domain of the academic community, profession, civil society and political parties, the Proceedings aims at serving as a source of information to all interested parties, in the first place to the decision-makers in the field of amending the current election legislation. Both publications are available for download from our website www.podlupom.org.
Conference “One Year after the Elections: Is there a
political will to amend the Election Law?”
One year after the elections, the Coalition symbolically held a conference
under the same title in BiH Parliamentary Assembly, opened by the ambassador
Jonathan Moore, a head of OSCE Mission to BiH.
“The Overview of the Election Legislation and the Segments of the Election Law
in 40 Member Countries of OSCE” was presented at the conference, and two panel
sessions were held on the subject of the current situation regarding the issues
of amending the election legislation and the future work of Inter-Sector
Working Group for Amendments to BiH Election Law. The Conference gathered over
one hundred participants, representatives of the government institutions at all
levels, the election administration, international and domestic organizations
and the media.
Monitoring the Inter-Sector Working Group for Amendment
to BH Election Law
Since October the Coalition ‘Pod lupom” has been regularly monitoring the
meetings of ISWG as an external/associate member; the meetings are held once a
week. At the request of the ISWG’s Chairman, the Coalition has handed over all
the drafted materials that could be of use in the analysis and decision-making.
In addition to this, in coordination with the Central Election Committee, the
Coalition prepares the amendments to the recommendations presented in the
Coalition’s Final Report 2014, and will forward them by the end of December to
the Inter-Sector Working Group for their consideration.
Redesign of www.podlupom.org website
We are happy to present to you a redesigned website podlupom.org, which is
from now more efficient and simpler to use both by citizens and journalists.
All the suggestions and comments are welcome.
A new CCI’s analysis “Effects of the Law – an Unknown Fact in BiH" was presented. This book is a result of a research work and the analysis of the existing legislative repercussions on the political practice and reality of Bosnia and Herzegovina. These activities are implemented as part of the project “Civil Society Sustainability Program” (CSSP) which is supported by USAID.
Namely, attention is drawn to a widely present occurrence within BH political circles, a necessity to improve the efficiency of the legislative procedure in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and at the same time the need to ensure higher effectiveness of the adopted laws. Furthermore, a situation whereby the most important laws are being enacted in an urgent procedure, without the inclusion of the expert public, in which one third of the laws cannot be implemented because of a delay in passing of by-laws, in which the same laws are being amended several times in a short time period, is not sustainable or in line with the European standards and it requires radical changes. Moreover, the fact that only few analyses of the effects of the laws are being accepted and the contents of which comes into force is also a matter of concern. This is to the detriment of the whole society, because the quality of laws in Bosnia and Herzegovina is not assessed (primarily) on the basis of their effects and degree of implementation, but on the basis of the quality of legal text or the mere fact of their adoption and coming into force. In this context it is hard to understand that not even the basic “analysis of law effects” (ex-post analysis) was done for over two thirds of adopted fundamental laws from the period 2010-2014 (69%, ±5%), after a certain time of their adoption.
The book is available on http://www.cci.ba/pubs/1/21/1.htmland only in the local language.
CCI started the implementation of the new project “Reforms and Job”. the main goal of which is to contribute to the increase of responsibility of BH authorities for reducing unemployment through active participation in initiation, designing, implementation and monitoring of key economic reforms and new public policies contained in the Reform Agenda for BiH 2015-2018. The project is supported by the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in BiH.
CCI is implementing the project that will offer periodical reports on the progress of the implementation of the Reform Agenda, on the effects of reformed public policies on the standard of living and will, at the same time initiate and advocate a number of activities that will contribute to creation of new jobs.
At the early stage of the project, CCI designed a coherent methodological framework for implementing the monitoring of reforms and effects, relying on the Maastricht criteria of macroeconomic stability, the World Bank’s methodology (Doing Business indicators), the World Economic Forum (Global Competitiveness Index), and over 2 other authentic indicators developed for the needs of this monitoring, and which integrate all the chapters of the Reform Agenda and the most target measures from the same. At the end of 2015, CCI will finalize the first Monitoring Report, after which it will be presented to the public too.
Data on donated and allocated funds for the repair of consequences of floods available to the public on web platform www.brana.ba. Since April, Network Brana (DAM) has been continuously collecting data on donated and allocated funds for the renovation of the consequences of floods.
So far the data from 28 donor organizations, 10 authorities’ institutions at higher levels and 55 municipalities have been gathered. The total value of these donations is in the amount of 249.600.455 BAM. The collected data have been systematized and are available to the citizens via the web platform www.brana.ba
Local coordinators continued visiting the beneficiaries of the donations on the ground, and so far verified the donated funds in over 1000 locations at which they were spent.
CCI has been implementing the BRANA project since April
2015, with the support of the American Agency for International Development
(USAID), in order to contribute to the transparency of the process of recovery
in the flood-stricken areas, and thus strengthen the overall transparency and
responsibility in the work of the public institutions in BiH as well as of the
private sector and donors.
With the support of the Royal Netherlands Embassy, in December 2015, CCI launched a one-year project “Strengthening of Awareness and Capacities of Social Partners in BiH in the Area of Social Dialogue and Collective Bargaining”, with the aim to deliver its own contribution to strengthening of imperatives of social dialogue. Reforms of working legislation and other reforms that inevitably await BiH society in the near future will also mean a change of paradigm of representation of collective interests, contents and forms of dialogue of social partners, and lasting dynamics of dialogue as a mechanism to harmonize different interests.
In the early stage of the project CCI will prepare a comparative analysis of policies and practices of social dialogue and collective bargaining in the EU countries in relation to BiH, and with the support of partners from the Netherlands, will deliver a multi-module training for the Economic-Social Chambers of FBiH and RS, employers' associations, trade unions and departmental government institutions.
Kontakti
cci@ccibh.org