Minister of Environment and Spatial Planning Naser Nuredini and Executive Director of the Foundation Open Society – Macedonia Fani Karanfilova-Panovska signed a memorandum of cooperation on 24 January 2020.
The memorandum of cooperation represents a commitment by the Ministry of Environment and Spatial Planning (MESP) and the Foundation Open Society – Macedonia (FOSM) to enable participation of the civil society in key sector reforms related to environment and climate change under the EU accession process.
Having in mind the importance FOSM assigns to climate change effects, but primarily to environmental protection, as part of this cooperation with MESP, the project “CSO Dialogue – Platform for Structural Participation in EU Integrations” will implement activities to actualize these topics at several levels. In particular, as part of this cooperation the project will ensure greater visibility of the sector working group on environment and climate change and will actively support its work by providing essential and structural participation of the civil society. The sector working groups serve as interdepartmental forum for sector-specific policy dialogue, setting priorities for EU financial support and coordination of the overall foreign aid.
Under the memorandum of cooperation, FOSM is committed to develop the platform (www.dijalogkoneu.mk) as the central point for sharing essential and relevant information from institutions and civil society organizations. The platform already shares information on sector policies, EU accession chapters, as well as competences and respective mandates of individual sector working groups. In addition, FOSM will work on capacity building of institutions and civil society organizations, will organize sector-specific consultations, will develop 27 reports on work and functionality of sector working groups, and will implement other activities important for the structural dialogue.
Under the established cooperation and partnership and with a view to promote the structural dialogue, MESP will share and exchange essential and relevant information necessary for the civil society to participate in sector policy creation and national consultations, will ensure presence of MESP representatives at workshops and conferences, and will ensure presence of civil society representatives and researchers in sector working groups to develop independent annual report on work of this sector working group. The project “CSO Dialogue – Platform for Structural Participation in EU Integrations” is financed by the EU Delegation in the Republic of North Macedonia, implemented by FOSM in partnership with Eurothink – Center for European Strategies, Center for Civil Communications and Reactor-Research in Action, and in cooperation with the Secretariat for European Affairs.